Burnet Institute refusing to return JobKeeper despite $60m surplus

The Burnet Institute raked in an annual surplus last year of $60 million but won’t return nearly $5 million in JobKeeper.

A high profile public health institute known for its alarmist modelling and predictions about the pandemic is refusing to return nearly $5 million in JobKeeper subsidies, despite raking in an annual surplus last year of $60 million.

According to the 2020 annual report of the Melbourne-based non-profit Burnet Institute, taxpayer subsidies of $4,558,000 “enabled the Institute to maintain a high level of productivity and a pipeline for research discoveries and important laboratory capacity to respond to Covid-19 initiatives”.

At the same time, the Institute also netted $56 million from the sale of property, as well as an $8 million profit from the sale of Biolabs 360 Pty Ltd, in which it held a 75 per cent stake.

The Burnet Institute’s pandemic modelling, which has informed both NSW and Victorian government responses, has come under increasing scrutiny its dire predictions have failed to come true.

On August 2, Burnet Institute modelling claimed that Sydney would reach 8,000 cases per day by the end of the month.

On August 19, Burnet CEO Brendan Crabb told The Today Show that NSW was “in a steam train that is heading towards a cliff, not heading towards a station” and that cases would have to get back to “zero or close to zero” before lifting restrictions.

Professor Brendan Crabb. Picture: Hamish Blair

“The best outcome (for NSW) is lockdown till Christmas, keeping a lid on numbers like they are now,” he said.

Two weeks ago, on September 14, Burnet researchers claimed that without restrictions like curfews and the closure of hardware stores, cases in Sydney’s LGAs of concern would be tracking at around 4,000 cases a day – and not because of vaccination rates that are among the highest in the nation.

Burnet modelling has also been criticised for overstating the number of hospital beds and ICU units that would be needed during the current Delta outbreak in Sydney, and for sticking to an “eliminationist” mindset.

A spokesman for the organisation said that the institute “has always been a not-for-profit research organisation, which means we don’t make profits. Any surplus goes to helping improve the health of vulnerable people, not to shareholders.”

“In 2020, like many organisations facing challenges in the pandemic, JobKeeper was crucial to our work continuing. Our Board, like many boards around Australia, is looking at JobKeeper and that continues to be an ongoing discussion.”

NSW Senator Andrew Bragg said that he was surprised Labor, which has recently been pushing for private businesses to return JobKeeper payments, was ignoring operations like Burnet, which took in millions while pushing for “Covid Zero” policies and warning of the dangers of lifting lockdowns,

“Labor is very quiet about JobKeeper payments to fellow travellers,” he said.

“Labor works hard for their mates – unions, super funds, and public health lobbies, but they hate small business.”