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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 76 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 12 May 2021 by Ms L. Mettam

Parliament: 41 Session: 1

CORONAVIRUS — HOTEL QUARANTINE

76. Ms L. METTAM to the Minister for Health:

I refer to reports that multiple hotel quarantine staff have been under investigation for holding second jobs in contravention of the government's second jobs ban. Is the Department of Health investigating multiple workers for breaching the second jobs rule; and, if so, where were those additional jobs and at which hotels did the staff work?

Mr R.H. COOK replied:

Thanks very much for the question, member. Once again, it gives me an opportunity to get up and talk about how important our hotel quarantine system is in keeping Western Australians safe. Almost 45 000 people have now gone through our hotel quarantine system, with just a small handful of incidents to report during that time. It has been incredibly effective in keeping Western Australians safe. As the member alluded, making sure that we keep our staff members safe, and that they keep their families safe, is an important element of that process.

As the Premier has outlined on numerous occasions, we now require each of our hotel quarantine staff to undertake daily COVID-19 testing, plus weekly polymerase chain reaction testing. We require them to wear the appropriate personal protective equipment and to undertake extensive training in infection protection and control. We expect them to be able to properly manage the circumstances in which they work so that they can keep themselves out of harm's way. In particular, we recently introduced a mandatory vaccination policy for all workers, or all people, coming into what is called a ''red zone'' in our hotel quarantine system. That will make sure that we can protect staff and that they can protect their families and friends.

In addition, some time back we also instituted a rule that would require security guards, in particular, who are working in a hotel quarantine environment to commit to a single point of employment. We compensated them for that by utilising a 40 per cent loading on their wages. This was negotiated with their contractors—the various security firms that contract to our hotel quarantine system. As a result, the Department of Health continues to work with contractors to make sure that they have oversight of their staff. Their staff are required to fill out a statutory declaration to say that they will not take on additional work. Obviously, it is hard to police. We cannot visit people in their homes to ask whether they are working tonight and what they are doing on their days off, but, obviously, we can continue to liaise with them in the team-like environment in which we are operating.

The fact that a worker can be identified as having taken on secondary employment means that we can then move swiftly to take them out of the hotel quarantine arrangement so that they can continue to enjoy their life in that secondary employment, but not inside our hotel quarantine system.