Since the beginning of the pandemic, a Senate committee has been tasked with scrutinising the government's response to COVID-19.
That has included looking at things like lockdowns, the international border closure, how the government handled cruise ship outbreaks, and more recently, the vaccine rollout.
Here are a few of the key takeaways.
Labor-dominated report
The first takeaway is that while the committee included senators from all major parties, it was dominated by Labor members.
As a result, the recommendations include a number of policies the party has advocated for during the pandemic.
In their dissenting report, Liberal Senator James Paterson and Nationals Senator Perin Davey rejected accusations the government had not cooperated with the committee, which had been used to push Labor's agenda.
"While this committee was initially established with bipartisan support and a genuine desire to investigate issues of concern during a rapidly evolving pandemic, the committee has regrettably been used a vehicle in which Labor senators have pursued partisan attacks on the government," they said.
Establishing a CDC
Creating a Centre for Disease Control (CDC) is the first recommendation in the committee's final report, but it's not a new one.
In one of its interim reports from 2020, the committee made the same recommendation — that the pandemic had proved why Australia needed a dedicated centre to coordinate responses to future outbreaks.
The report says it would improve Australia's "pandemic preparedness, operational response capacity and communication across all levels of government".
Royal commission into COVID handling
Another recommendation, and also something Labor has previously called for, is a royal commission into the government's initial and ongoing management of the pandemic.
It also called for the government to begin a review of its pandemic planning, to make sure that if we are hit with another virus in the future, that we have learned from the COVID-19 experience.
They want reports every two years, starting in 2024, on how the planning is going and if and how it's being updated.
In the same vein, the committee also recommended the government commit to doing pandemic preparedness exercises, kind of like a pandemic fire drill, every two years, also starting in 2024.
Aged care review
The government's handling of COVID-19 outbreaks in residential aged care has been an ongoing point of scrutiny for the committee.
In 2020, the focus was on outbreaks in aged care and the responses to them, while last year the focus shifted to how quickly the vaccine was being delivered.
The final report calls for a review of the government's National COVID-19 Aged Care Plan and how the response to outbreaks impacted residents and staff in facilities.
It has also used the final report to call for the government to back a wage rise for aged care workers, which is currently being considered by the Fair Work Commission.
Review into impact on First Nations communities, children
The report also called for scrutiny of how the government's response impacted First Nations communities and how it impacted children.
It specifically recommended that for First Nations communities, the government look at and "adequately address" the social determinants of health that have been exposed by the pandemic.
That includes things like food security, fuel security, water security, quarantine facilities and housing — particularly in remote communities.
Overcrowding in remote Aboriginal communities was an ongoing issue before the pandemic, but made it impossible for many people who contracted COVID-19 to isolate from the rest of their family and slow the spread of the disease.
The report says given the timing of the rollout for children and the general disruption to their lives over the course of the pandemic, an expert review should be done to look at how the government's response affected their education, mental health, social wellbeing and development.
Stop funding the COVIDSafe app
The report calls for an immediate end to any government funding for the COVIDSafe app.
Last year, Labor called for the app to be scrapped after it was revealed it found just two potential close contacts in six months.
It was introduced in April 2020, months after the pandemic began and was downloaded by millions of people in the hope it would help find close contacts of cases.
As of September last year, the app had cost taxpayers $9 million.
