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.