Treasurer Josh Frydenberg masks up in Melbourne on Saturday.Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui
The Treasurer also called on Victoria and other states to pay their fair share in the nation's economic recovery from COVID-19,saying they had the balance sheets to help the Commonwealth.
Premier Daniel Andrews on Saturday dismissed concerns over the government's selection of private security guards on social inclusion grounds,saying he didn't"intend to be running a commentary on these matters"while the inquiry into Victoria's quarantine program was under way.
"There is a separate process to deal with those matters. I don't believe those reports are accurate,but in any event that's not a matter for me to sit in judgment of,"Mr Andrews said.
Former judge Jennifer Coate,the head of the inquiry,has said that there is nothing preventing the government from speaking publicly about the hotel quarantine program because the inquiry is not a court.
The Age and theHerald on Saturday revealed that officials in the Department of Jobs,Precincts and Regions employment division and its international trade agency,Global Victoria,were responsible for engaging private security firms for hotel quarantine on the weekend of March 28 and 29.
The Sydney-based security company given much of the hotel quarantine work,Unified Security,satisfied the Victorian government's criteria for contracts under its social inclusion procurement policy as an Indigenous-owned organisation.
It was also revealed a senior Department of Jobs official had been shifted from their role,but departmental sources insisted that the official's secondment to another senior job creation role was not a reflection on their performance in contracting private security firms for hotel quarantine.