Damning allegations revealed during hotel quarantine inquiry

Further stories of misconduct have surfaced during the inquiry into Melbourne’s Hotel quarantine failures.

The reports paint a damning picture of all alleged indiscretions. These include: allegations of harassment, a large group of hotel guards breaching quarantine rules, guards stealing guest towels for naps and hotels not being equipped to feed high numbers of guests. 

Rydges on Swanston general manager Rosswyn Menezes told Melbourne’s Hotel inquiry that he was aware of guards harassing some female staff members on may 10.

“Some security guards were harassing a few of my female staff members by passing certain comments and a few words,” he said.

Mr Menezes had forwarded an email from one of his colleagues onto representatives from the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions.

The security guard involved has been terminated from his job.

This comes a day after it was revealed that a security guard slipped a note under the door of a guest at Crowne Plaza hotel which read “Hey hun, add me on Snapchat”.

The inquiry also heard on Friday about 70 security guards who had gathered in the same room during a changeover of shifts at the Stamford Plaza Hotel, were not wearing gloves when handling guests luggage.

The hotel’s general manager Karl Unterfrauner said he was not at the hotel to witness this  as he was in self-isolation at the time, but he did confirm that the incident occurred a day before an outbreak in the hotel.

According to Mr Unterfrauner, “The program now is much more refined than it was two or three months ago.

“The communication process should have a singular point of contact to make communication more streamlined – under the Department of Corrections this has been something they really developed.” 

Further to this, there are the allegations of guards accessing towels from back-of -house where they were not permitted to enter, and taking the towels that were specifically for the guests and using them as pillows so they could sleep in the corridors.

The Travelodge Docklands was also brought up.

It was ill-equipped to feed the massive numbers of quarantine guests with minimal dietary  requirement information handed over at check-in.

The Travelodge is a limited service hotel so it usually only provides accommodation and breakfast. Without a fully equipped kitchen, it was extremely difficult for them to cater to the amount of guests they had.

The inquiry continues next week.

Irit Jackson, 1^st September 2020