“Significant mistakes” made by government during Covid, review finds
<p dir="ltr">An independent review of the Australian government’s response to COVID-19 has found that “significant mistakes were made” and that policies impacted vulnerable communities the most.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Peter Shergold, the chancellor of Western Sydney University and leader of the review panel, told reporters that the government would have known that Covid policies would have the harshest impacts on low socio-economic groups.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“I think the single biggest failure was not sufficiently planning for the fault lines in society. Those who are disadvantaged, those who are vulnerable,” Mr Shergold said.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“People who are on the wrong side of the digital divide, women, migrants who are here from non-English speaking backgrounds, First Nations people.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“So right at the start this next time, we need to put those fault lines first and foremost in mind if we’re going to handle a national pandemic correctly.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">Mr Shergold said the 97-page review acknowledged that decisions were made under a “fog of uncertainty” and that its purpose wasn’t to lay blame on anyone.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“In a real sense, we are all responsible,” he said.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“I cannot say to you with my hand on my heart that two years ago in that swirling fog of uncertainty I would have made different decisions or given different advice.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“The key is that we‘ve learned the lesson for the next time or even for the rest of this pandemic.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">A major concern identified in the report was the implementation of policies without considering existing inequalities in society, and that a major outcome was the need to involve local governments in implementing and communicating national policies to communities.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“We need to place vulnerable Australians at the centre of our planning,” Professor Shergold said.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The review identified four key areas where the government needs to improve and made six recommendations for future health crises.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It found that economic supports provided by the government “lacked fairness and compassion” and that lockdowns had an unfair impact on children and parents, particularly mothers.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“For children and parents (particularly women), we failed to get the balance right between protecting health and imposing long-term costs on education, mental health, the economy and workforce outcomes,” the panel said.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The panel also found that many of the lockdowns and border closures were used as a result of policy failures, and that they should have been last-resort measures used to source vaccines and PPE, prepare hospitals, and nail down contact tracing and quarantine procedures.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The third area where improvement was needed related to schools, with the panel finding that school systems shouldn’t have been shut down once information suggested they weren’t high-transmission environments.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“It’s not just educational disruption or the impact on the economy because parents have to stay home or the increased pressure on parents and particularly I’d have to say mums,” Mr Shergold said.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“We can already see it in terms of the stress and the anxiety and the frankly mental ill health of many young people who have not just been shut out of school but shut out of normal life.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">Finally, the panel said that older Australians should have received more attention from the government.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Funding was inadequate. The labour force was stretched. Fixing aged care requires changed attitudes,” the panel said.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Restricting aged care visits beyond the worst of the pandemic caused “unnecessary pain and distress”, while restricting aged care residents from going to hospital when they caught Covid was a “mistake that cost lives”.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The six recommendations for navigating future crises include:</p>
<ol>
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<p dir="ltr" role="presentation"> Establish an independent, data-driven Australian Centre for Disease Control and Prevention</p>
</li>
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<p dir="ltr" role="presentation">Clearly define national cabinet roles and responsibilities in a crisis</p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">
<p dir="ltr" role="presentation">Publicly release modelling used in government decision making</p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">
<p dir="ltr" role="presentation">Regular pandemic scenario testing</p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">
<p dir="ltr" role="presentation">Sharing and linking of data between jurisdictions</p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">
<p dir="ltr" role="presentation">Establish an Office of the Evaluator General for real-time tracking of policy performance during a crisis</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p dir="ltr">The panel also criticised the government’s lack of a clawback mechanism for businesses on JobKeeper, dubbing it a “design fault”.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“It was fiscally irresponsible and unfair when other groups in society were excluded from economic supports,” the panel said.</p>
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<p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Getty Images</em></p>
