The impact of lockdowns, border closures and school shutdowns during the pandemic will be examined by the federal government’s Covid-19 inquiry, one of the independent panel members insists.
The Albanese government has been criticised for excluding unilateral state and territory decisions from the inquiry’s terms of reference.
But Deakin University’s epidemiology chair, Prof Catherine Bennett, said the exclusions were to ensure the inquiry wasn’t bogged down by specific decisions made in specific contexts.
It would be a “new world” when the next pandemic hit, the panel member told Guardian Australia. It would involve another disease, the Australian Centre for Disease Control would be in place and different leaders would be in charge, Bennett said.
The inquiry’s terms of reference include the federal government’s role, state and territory responsibilities and how governance structures operated, including national cabinet (which includes the prime minister, premiers and chief ministers) and the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (which includes the state and territory chief medical officers).
The terms of reference explicitly include support provided for people affected by Covid-19 lockdowns, international border closures, labour shortages, supply chains and the needs of particular populations.
The scope of the inquiry was attacked by groups including the Australian Medical Association (AMA), the human rights commissioner and the Australian Industry Group as well as the opposition.
The AMA president, Steve Robson, said it would be “half an inquiry” while the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, accused Labor of running a “protection racket” for the premiers.
The independent panel comprises Bennett, experienced public servant Robyn Kruk and health economist Angela Jackson. They will work with a taskforce being set up within the prime minister’s department.
Bennett insisted all facets of the pandemic would be included because they were discussed in national cabinet and the AHPPC. They were also examined by previous inquiries that the panel would review.
The inquiry was focused on “lesson gathering” and not repeating work already complete, but rather “building on it”.
“I guess people were disappointed because they want to see a day of reckoning,” Bennett said, adding that everyone wanted the best outcome but took “different paths” to get there.
“Less reckoning, more wisdom,” she said.
“It’s important we understand the decision-making process and how that supported or hindered things at the national level. Everything was changing. The virus was changing. We were changing once the virus was in the community.”
Bennett said in the early stages of the pandemic governments used the “precautionary principle” – putting measures in place to save lives while waiting for evidence.
She said the inquiry would look at the actions taken, the proportionality of the response and any “unintended consequences”.
It was about “understanding the broader impacts on health, on individual wellbeing, and importantly, on particular populations, often the most disadvantaged already. We know they bore the larger impact of infection, but also the impact of the responses put in place.”
After announcing the inquiry, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, faced questions about why it wasn’t a royal commission and whether state and territory leaders could be compelled to attend.
Albanese said a royal commission wasn’t necessary and could take too long and that leaders were willing to attend and the panel could “look at whatever they like”.
“The independent inquiry can look at the full gamut of issues – that’s the point of having an independent inquiry,” he said at the time.
The federal health minister, Mark Butler, said last week that the people who suffered from border and school closures and curfews would have their stories heard.
“I want them to be told,” he said.
“We want that group of experts to look at all of the health response measures, which includes the public health and social measures … that covers social distancing arrangements, density requirements, school closures, business closures, border closures, lockdowns, all of those things that were put in place at the time by state governments managing an emergency will be in the scope of the inquiry.”
Prof Tony Blakely, a professorial fellow in epidemiology at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, chaired the New Zealand royal commission on Covid-19.
He told ABC radio that discussions about lockdowns and school closures were discussed in national cabinet or the AHPPC.
“So I don’t see why a wide-ranging and wide-thinking Australian inquiry cannot talk to those matters,” he said. “We’ve got a lot to learn … we’ve learned a lot since then.”
The panel’s report is due in September 2024.
