‘Worse-placed than in 2020’: Where Australia’s pandemic response went wrong

Australians’ trust has been eroded, health systems are struggling and inflation pressures from government pandemic stimulus are still hurting the economy almost five years after the first COVID-19 case was detected, the first wide-ranging inquiry into the national response to the virus has found.

The Morrison government acted quickly to shut the border and introduce wage subsidies, but its delays procuring COVID-19 vaccines cost lives and delivered a $31 billion hit to the economy, while more than $210 billion in federal government stimulus has contributed to inflation that continues to drive up housing costs.

The findings of the Australian government inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic were released on Tuesday.Credit: Getty Images

The year-long inquiry was commissioned by the Albanese government and was compiled by an independent panel led by senior public servant Robyn Kruk, economist Angela Jackson and infectious disease expert Catherine Bennett. It found Australia fared well during the pandemic compared to other countries that experienced a larger loss of life, health system collapse and more severe economic downturns.

But there could have been less collateral damage. Almost five years later, it found children were still suffering from mental health and academic consequences of school closures, people are now more reluctant to receive vaccines, elective surgery backlogs still plague hospitals, and frontline workers are burnt out.

Health Minister Mark Butler said the reviewers had not pulled any punches. “To use the words of the report, our response to the pandemic was not as effective as it could have been,” he said. “The striking conclusion ... is that right now, we are arguably worse-placed as a country to deal with a pandemic than we were in early 2020.”

Butler said public trust had been so broken by 2021 that many measures implemented during the pandemic were unlikely to be accepted by the population again. The health system and workforce had also been scarred, while the public service had lost experienced staff due to exhaustion.

Victoria’s heavy-handed approach to enforcing social distancing was criticised for lacking evidence while eroding compliance. It noted daily press conferences held by then-premier Daniel Andrews but found leaders “did not clearly explain the evidence that supported ongoing enforcement” of measures such as prolonged isolation or lockdowns. This was particularly the case in Melbourne as vaccinations became available.

In NSW, where police officers had the sole power for enforcing public health orders, on-the-spot fines were higher than penalties for existing criminal offences, and disproportionately issued to certain groups including Indigenous people, those with unsafe home environments, and people whose main language was not English.

But the individual decisions of state premiers were largely spared by a review that focused on ways to deal with a future pandemic.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who had yet to read the report, said it was a hit job on the Morrison government. He said without the support put in place during the pandemic, there would have been mass unemployment and business closures.

“There was a lot of support that we provided when we were in government to keep businesses open and to keep people employed, and without that, millions of Australians would have either lost their livelihoods and/or their homes and businesses,” he said.

An estimated 20,000 people have died from COVID-19 in Australia. In 2022 alone, almost 10,000 people died, making COVID-19 the third largest cause of death. Last year, 5001 people lost their lives to the virus.

Butler said the report did not “seek to scapegoat people who were seeking to act in the best interests of our country and the community”.

The report, titled Commonwealth Government COVID-19 Response Inquiry, praised “the decisive and difficult decisions” taken by former prime minister Scott Morrison and said his calls demonstrated courageous leadership at the crucial early stage.

It found the Morrison government’s rapid response – closing the international border, announcing a national lockdown and supporting jobs through the JobKeeper wage subsidy – had protected lives in the first wave and “set us on a path that reduced the overall negative impacts of the pandemic”.

Morrison also identified weaknesses in the Commonwealth-state relationship and sought to fix them with the national cabinet.

But after success with a precautionary approach, which was dominated by a low tolerance for COVID-19 cases, governments lost the community’s trust as they struggled to shift to a risk-based approach “grounded in evidence”.

National cabinet became less unified as time went on, and differing measures across states undermined public confidence, including school closures, vaccine mandates and interstate border closures.

“Some differences were not easily explained, and no rationale was provided. This included the operation of state border closures that states enacted unilaterally and that lacked consistency and compassion,” it found.

Many measures were also disproportionate and inconsistently applied across the country: children, people in aged care, culturally diverse communities, Indigenous and disabled people suffered the most.

Some of the report’s most specific criticism was around the delayed vaccine rollout ahead of the Omicron variant which swept through country at the end of 2021.

“This meant our staged reopening occurred months later than it otherwise could have, with a direct economic cost estimated at $31 billion,” the inquiry found.

It said total spending, including in the final Morrison government budget of March 2022-23, contributed to the inflation pressures that were still plaguing the economy.

“With the benefit of hindsight, there was excessive fiscal and monetary policy stimulus provided throughout 2021 and 2022, especially in the construction sector,” it found.

Former treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the report vindicated the Morrison government’s COVID-19 spending.

“Faced with the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression, Australia’s COVID response was world-leading. The number of jobs saved was higher and the rebound was much faster than in other comparable economies,” he said.

The report said an Australian Centre for Disease Control could help restore trust by planning for pandemics, collecting data and providing evidence.

The Albanese government on Tuesday pledged $252 million to establish the CDC independent of the Health Department by January 2026.

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