Health Minister Natasha Fyles unsure how Alice Springs hotel quarantine agreements were made

The Northern Territory Health Minister has admitted she doesn’t know the “exact details” of hotel quarantine agreements that she partly blamed for a public health saga that unfolded in Alice Springs earlier this week.

An influx of people arriving from South Australia — which was declared a coronavirus hotspot on Monday — stretched the town’s official quarantine facility to capacity on Tuesday afternoon.

Health Minister Natasha Fyles has maintained that some local hotels are partly responsible for the scramble to find appropriate quarantine venues that followed.

Some arrivals made their way into commercial hotel rooms, while about 70 were eventually flown to the Howard Springs quarantine facility near Darwin and more than 130 were…