Josh Frydenberg says Victorians need answers about coronavirus hotel quarantine failures

By political reporter Jade Macmillan

Posted 11hhours ago, updated 2hours ago"Victorians know the 'what', but they don't know the 'how' and the 'why' when it comes to the quarantine failures," he said.

"And what we're dealing with here is hundreds of new cases in Victoria every day, 97 to 98 per cent of new cases in Australia are coming from Victoria alone."

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Saturday announced the state had recorded 466 new coronavirus cases, with 12 deaths in the last 24 hours.



Breaches in hotel quarantine have been blamed for contributing to the state's coronavirus outbreak, which has seen Melbourne placed under curfew and hundreds of thousands of people told not to go to work.

An inquiry into what went wrong has been delayed due to the state's stage 4 coronavirus restrictions.

Mr Frydenberg insisted he did not want to enter into a "slanging match" with the Victorian Premier but said people in his home state were facing "difficult days."

"There needs to be accountability, there needs to be an explanation," he said.

"Victorians deserve that, Victorians want that, Victorians need that at this difficult time. They're being asked to make major sacrifices right now."

Treasurer ramps up attack on Victorian hotel quarantine amid 'social inclusion' revelations

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says it is up to the Victorian government to explain how and why the hotel quarantine program broke down following evidence emerging that the selection of private security guards was partly driven by an attempt to provide jobs under "social inclusion" policies.

Mr Frydenberg on Saturday escalated his attacks against the Andrews government's quarantine system, which has been responsible for the initial outbreak that led to the second wave of coronavirus cases, saying Victorians were entitled to more information about what went wrong.