Ruby Princess Royal Commision Report released this afternoon - link.

[Pushka]

https://www.dpc.nsw.gov.au/assets/dpc-nsw-gov-au/publications/The-Special-Commission-of-Inquiry-into-the-Ruby-Princess-Listing-1628/Report-of-the-Special-Commission-of-Inquiry-into-the-Ruby-Princess.pdf

 

[VPS]

can you give me a quick summary?

 

[Pushka]

can you give me a quick summary?

Dammit. I was hoping you might . Seems to me he wont allocate blame. Just a whole lot of errors and miscommunications. eg Dr shoukd have upgrded the number of at risk of covid people acccording to new panel standards but that wasnt conveyed to her. Should have had more test kits onboard but didnt blame Princess. And so on. Of course the Princess fanbois on CC are saying the report clears princess of any wrong doing.

 

[odysseus]

can you give me a quick summary?

See page 31 for the key findings.

Most findings were against NSW Health and Border Force. Princess mostly did the right thing.

The recommendations on p.34 relate to the Health authorities.

 

[RooFlyer]

Most findings were against NSW Health and Border Force. Princess mostly did the right thing.

In fact there were no findings against Australian Border Force; not only that, ABF was specifically cleared of any responsibility. The only mention of them in 'Key Finding's was:

Passengers were incorrectly advised by the ABF during the cruise that their 14-day
period of self-isolation would commence from the date of departure from the
last overseas port visited by the Ruby Princess, being Napier on 15 March. This
inaccuracy was later clarified during disembarkation at the OPT on 19 March, when
passengers were provided with a fact sheet published by the Commonwealth
Department of Health which relevantly instructed them to self-isolate for 14 days
from their arrival in Sydney.

On p. 25 the report says (my bolding):

The relevant legislative provisions make it crystal clear that the Australian Border
Force (ABF), despite its portentous title, has no relevant responsibility for the
processes by which, by reference to health risks to the Australian community,
passengers were permitted to disembark from the Ruby Princess, as they did, on
19 March 2020. The absence of any such duty no doubt explains why the ABF is not
granted specific powers in relation to pratique, and why there are no appropriate
postings of medical practitioners or epidemiologists in the ABF ranks.

...

As this Report was being finished,
some interesting journalism was published that advanced the notion that a basic
misreading by an ABF officer of negative influenza results as meaning negative
COVID-19 results, had somehow contributed to the decision to let the passengers
go as they did on 19 March. As the body of the Report spells out, that is not correct.
It was the State’s Expert Panel that made the operative decision, relayed accurately
(if by a clumsy means) to the DAWE Biosecurity Officer who granted pratique. That
seems by far to be the most likely understanding of what happened, by dint of
administrative conduct that undoubtedly could have been more crisp and formal.
To repeat, neither the ABF nor any ABF officers played any part in the mishap.

 

[get me outta here]

It would’ve had more clarity if the Commonwealth government has actually turned up all the investigation:

Special commissioner Bret Walker, SC, rebukes Morrison for not delivering full federal co-operation with the investigation.

"The one fly in the ointment so far as assistance to this commission goes, is the stance of the Commonwealth," he writes.

Walker notes his requests for federal witnesses were met with plans to defy him in the High Court.

"Quite how this met the Prime Minister's early assurances of full cooperation with the commission escapes me," writes Walker dryly.
Walker says this "disfigures" the notion of co-operative federalism and means NSW should reconsider its arrangements with Canberra on biosecurity if it cannot get clarity on who does what.

The situation pertaining throughout February and March 2020 – a time of seriously increased biosecurity risk due to COVID-19 – was that DAWE had compromised its responsibility for human biosecurity matters," he writes. [Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment and its minister, David Littleproud.]
"There were breaches of its own policies."

Walker says the federal department did not even tell NSW Health it had stopped performing its human biosecurity role. He finds fundamental errors by state and federal authorities as well as "lack of communication and coordination" on the morning the ship arrived.

This mess is a wake-up call to all governments in this pandemic. NSW Health did not turn up on the morning the ship arrived. It left the task to Canberra. Each government assumed the other was doing its job properly. Both were wrong.

 

[odysseus]

In fact there were no findings against Australian Border Force; not only that, ABF was specifically cleared of any responsibility. The only mention of them in 'Key Finding's was:

Passengers were incorrectly advised by the ABF during the cruise that their 14-day
period of self-isolation would commence from the date of departure from the
last overseas port visited by the Ruby Princess, being Napier on 15 March. This
inaccuracy was later clarified during disembarkation at the OPT on 19 March, when
passengers were provided with a fact sheet published by the Commonwealth
Department of Health which relevantly instructed them to self-isolate for 14 days
from their arrival in Sydney.

On p. 25 the report says (my bolding):

The relevant legislative provisions make it crystal clear that the Australian Border
Force (ABF), despite its portentous title, has no relevant responsibility for the
processes by which, by reference to health risks to the Australian community,
passengers were permitted to disembark from the Ruby Princess, as they did, on
19 March 2020. The absence of any such duty no doubt explains why the ABF is not
granted specific powers in relation to pratique, and why there are no appropriate
postings of medical practitioners or epidemiologists in the ABF ranks.

...

As this Report was being finished,
some interesting journalism was published that advanced the notion that a basic
misreading by an ABF officer of negative influenza results as meaning negative
COVID-19 results, had somehow contributed to the decision to let the passengers
go as they did on 19 March. As the body of the Report spells out, that is not correct.
It was the State’s Expert Panel that made the operative decision, relayed accurately
(if by a clumsy means) to the DAWE Biosecurity Officer who granted pratique. That
seems by far to be the most likely understanding of what happened, by dint of
administrative conduct that undoubtedly could have been more crisp and formal.
To repeat, neither the ABF nor any ABF officers played any part in the mishap.

A "finding" against the ABF giving the wrong instructions IS a finding against them. They aren't responsible for health processes, which I don't think was at question.

And yes giving the wrong instructions is "playing a part in the mishap."