by Maryanne Demasi, Activist Post:
In September 2023, the Australian government announced an independent Inquiry into the nation’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
From the outset, critics predicted a whitewash.
The government had already walked back its promise to hold a Royal Commission.
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Instead, it settled for an ‘Inquiry’ that would lack broad powers to compel witnesses under oath and subpoena documents.
It was billed as an “independent” Inquiry, but two of the three appointed experts had already shown favour towards the government’s Covid policies.
And many complained the “terms of reference” were too narrow to allow a full accounting of the decisions made by State and Territory governments.
The year-long investigation recently concluded, and the findings were released in an 868-page report.
Panel Findings
The lengthy report was littered with bureaucratese and praised many of the government’s actions during the pandemic.
The panel applauded the “agility” of the government to act early and lockdown in order to “buy time” before the vaccines were rolled out, which it said, “undoubtedly saved many lives.”
The panel wrote, “Had Australia not closed the international borders and imposed a national lockdown as quickly as we did, community spread would have overwhelmed most public health departments.”
The panel also commended sectors for their “quick action” in developing tests for Covid-19, which enabled early surveillance, and held the virus at bay for the larger part of two years.
That said, some important admissions of insufficiency were made.
The panel noted the inconsistency of state lockdowns, and how unprepared the country was for a pandemic, with no plan for international border closures, or shutting down schools and businesses.
The panel conceded this led to staff shortages, a mental health crisis, and the “erosion of trust” towards government for its abuse of power and overreach.
However, instead of condemning the government’s authoritarian policies, the panel called for greater centralised control of people and public health messaging.
It suggested Australia’s Centre for Disease Control become the “authoritative” source of public health information in the next crisis, with no acknowledgement of how its US counterpart repeatedly mishandled the pandemic response.
Gigi Foster, a professor of economics at the University of New South Wales, said the report lays out the “opposite” of what needs to be done next time we face a health crisis. “If we adopt the recommendations of the panel, we will be worse off next time,” said Foster.
“This report is going to be used as the justification for even more government interference and more centralised control. It will make it easier to lock down, close schools, close borders, and surveil people – none of that is really going to promote health,” she said.
Foster explained that we need to move away from the idea that Government is the only source of truth and information during a crisis.
“It was the government’s policies during the pandemic that lacked evidence and caused the most harm. It was the government that actually ramped up fear by holding daily press conferences and doing things like hiring young actors to pretend they were dying of Covid in hospital,” she added.
“The report is several hundred pages of hand-wringing and brow-furrowing about the various people who were harmed by the government’s policies, but then it proposes that we need even more government architecture in order to protect them next time. It’s a fantasy,” said Foster.
In March 2020, Foster tried to warn policymakers of the need for a cost-benefit analysis of lockdowns and other restrictive measures, but she was met with fierce opposition and an unwillingness to listen.
“That’s the irony,” said Foster. “We were denigrated, and called granny killers back in the day, and labelled as the people who want to let it rip. But we never actually said that. We said we needed to direct resources towards trying to protect the elderly and the vulnerable.”
