Michael O’Brien is expected to move no confidence in Daniel Andrews

It comes after the Prime Minister’s right-hand man, Chris Eccles, resigned with immediate effect on Monday morning – hours after phone records revealed that the former Secretary of the Ministry for Prime Ministers and Cabinet spent two minutes with former Victoria Police Commissioner Graham Ashton , had spoken. Minute window.

It’s the same six-minute window that the hotel’s quarantine scan is examining. It is believed to contain important details about who made the decision to hire private security guards.

Opposition leader Michael O’Brien will move the motion of no confidence in the prime minister, citing the government’s “failures, cover-ups and lies” amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr O’Brien said Daniel Andrews “threw a second senior member of his team under the bus” after Chris Eccles resigned Monday morning.

“One thing is for sure – when Andrews is under pressure, he will throw those close to him under a bus in an attempt to save himself,” he said.

“While phone records show that Eccles called then Police Commissioner Graham Ashton, he doesn’t answer the question every Victorian deserves the answer: Who made the decision to turn down ADF hotel quarantine assistance and use untrained private security instead who created Victoria’s second wave? ”

With Labor having a dominant 11-seat majority in the House, the motion of censure will almost certainly be rejected.

But Mr O’Brien urged Labor MPs to “show who they stand with”.

“Every single Labor MP will have an opportunity this week … Daniel Andrews or the Victorian people for whom they were elected,” he said.

Introduced the media two hours after Mr. Eccles resigned, Mr Andrews said it was “very sad” that his 35 years of civil service ended as it was.

“I think he made the right choice,” said the prime minister.

“He made a decision that his position was untenable.”

In a statement released Monday, Mr. Andrews paid tribute to Mr. Eccles’ decades of civil service in governments in three states and the Commonwealth.

“(I) thank him for the significant contribution he has made to Victoria. I wish him all the best, ”he said.

“By last night I understood that Mr. Eccles didn’t know if he had called Mr. Ashton at that point. This matter is now beyond doubt.

“Mr. Eccles made a pretty binary statement and it turned out that it wasn’t and once he realized it I think he did the right thing.”

At the press conference on Monday, the Prime Minister was asked again whether he was aware of who made the decision to turn down Australian armed forces personnel and instead hire private security guards to oversee hotel quarantine.

Mr. Andrews said he did not know.