Tim Dower: What are the lessons to be learned from the MIQ breach?

Before we blow a fuse at managed isolation, let's have some context. Nearly 170,000 people have been through the system. 12 escapes all up involving 16 people, and that includes this one we had yesterday, who'd been in there not even 7 hours before he made his break. What makes you sick about this guy is that a whole bunch of police have had to go chasing after him, and be exposed to him. They now all have to be tested and I suppose isolate until they come up clear. Ironically, if they've caught it in the process of picking this character up, they'll end up in MIQ. The point is that this one escape is really serious; the guy has put a whole lot of people at risk. We don't know anything yet about where he went while he was out and who else might have been exposed. Hopefully, because everyone is meant to be at home and this happened in the middle of the night, it won't be a lot of people. But there was a driver, whether that person was a deliberate accessory is another matter. What I'm wondering, is whether this guy should have been in MIQ at all. From what I've read of his online ranting and raving, the man was not a willing guest of the system. That would have been clear from the get-go, so to point the bone at MIQ for the escape seems unfair. And now we're plucking people from their homes into obligatory quarantine, we can expect more of this. And we need to have, what shall I call it, alternative accommodation for those who don't want to play the game.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.