Daniel Andrews’ secret Covid-19 vaccine surveys by QDOS must be made public

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews holds a press conference during a Covid lockdown. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Crosling

Victorians paid for the Covid-19 vaccine surveys and deserve to see the results. The QDOS analysis of the data that informed Daniel Andrews and his crisis cabinet must also be released.

If we were dealing with a government committed to transparency, the latest batch of QDOS documents revealing extensive vaccination surveys were conducted between May and October 2021 might not be a big issue.

Maybe, the data and analysis will show the program was entirely – and appropriately – focused on public health issues around vaccines. Remember, we needed to get vaccinated to get out of lockdown.

But the vaccine surveys are being kept secret.

As we know, this is a government addicted to secrecy and willing to trash pretty much every mechanism a democracy has to keep those we elect in check.

A scathing anti-corruption investigation; don’t worry, it’s just an educational report. Caught red-handed cheating taxpayers out of $400,000 to help win an election; repay the money and move on. After all, we’re in government now and there’s important work to do. Hire poorly trained private security guards at quarantine hotels and trigger a 112-day lockdown and the deaths of 800 people; can’t recall who thought of that.

These QDOS documents, released to The Weekend Australian under Freedom of Information, demand scrutiny. This was a critical period in the Covid-19 pandemic. Victoria spent much of that time in lockdown (again) and a debate about the vaccine rollout was raging across the country. At the sharp end of that debate was how governments would deal with those that refused to get jabbed.

The 132-pages of partially redacted communications between QDOS and the Department of Premier and Cabinet reveal Andrews’ political strategy consultant was commissioned to conduct major vaccine surveys of Victorians. Like all of QDOS’ taxpayer-funded work, the Premier’s Private Office, the documents show, was all over this program.

The documents, a collection of emails and draft surveys, reveal that among the vaccine-related issues researched were sentiment around ongoing restrictions for the unvaccinated.

On one level, faced with an unprecedented vaccine rollout as a means to ending lockdowns, it’s reasonable for a government to want to know where the masses were on vaccines.

Data could reveal why some were vaccine hesitant and help health authorities convince them to get jabbed, and therefore quicken the exit from lockdown.

Director of QDOS Research John Armitage. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

The DPC has designated documents detailing the public responses and QDOS analysis ‘‘cabinet in confidence’’ in blocking the release under FoI. On Friday, the government rejected an additional request from The Weekend Australian to release the material.

Why keep them secret? How could their release undermine cabinet processes in 2023? Perhaps some clues lie in QDOS documents from its secret Covid-19 research from 2020 where there was a lot of non-public health polling conducted.

At the height of the 112-day lockdown, QDOS was polling Victorians about how they perceived the Premier’s performance. Cabinet was briefed on the results.

Andrews always said lockdowns were determined by health advice. But three years on, it’s now clear political and social polling by QDOS helped inform and shape the response.

The QDOS vaccine surveys must be made public. The pandemic is over. It’s time for the politics of the pandemic to finish too.