Victorian AMA boss hits out at state government’s ‘inability to learn from mistakes’

On the eve of stepping down from his role, the Victorian president of the Australian Medical Association has slammed the Andrews government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Julian Rait, who ends his tenure as Victorian AMA president on Tuesday, says he’s been disappointed by the state government’s “lack of transparency” and “inability to learn from mistakes”.

“If you have a situation where government wishes … to just build its expertise at deflecting, or obfuscating, or being able to side step a mistake and not actually acknowledge it then they’re less likely to improve,” he told Neil Mitchell.

“In life, unless you’re prepared to acknowledge errors … you won’t grow and that’s my concern about some of our institutions.”

Professor Rait says the state government must stop outsourcing services, or there will be another outbreak of COVID-19.

“Victoria let the team down with hotel quarantine and particularly the use of private security,” he said.

“The health department … tends to outsource things. It does this really to outsource the risk, it thinks its far easier to actually … get a private contractor to do something and have them take responsibility when things go wrong, rather than do things themselves and bear the responsibility when things go wrong.”

Press PLAY below to hear Professor Rait’s damning assessment of the state government’s handling of COVID-19