3.1
The rapidly developing challenges of COVID-19 required swift and
well-informed decision making by a government prepared to lead and take all necessary action to protect Australians. The Prime Minister told Australians that he would do all he could to get us through the pandemic, but he did not. A lack of adequate planning and readiness was apparent early in pandemic and continued throughout.
3.2
This chapter details six examples of the Australian Government's (government) failure to take responsibility: in managing quarantine; assisting Australians overseas; ensuring availability and accessibility of rapid antigen tests (RATs); delivering nationally-consistent support to businesses; and managing members of the government who promoted misinformation which undermined the key measures intended to keep Australians safe.
3.3
The committee recommends that the Australian Government work with the states and territories to identify ways to achieve better and more consistent outcomes, including in relation to disaster mitigation and response, through clearer delineation of Commonwealth and state and territory responsibilities, reduction in duplication and better identification of gaps in service delivery.
Quarantine
3.4
International arrivals and the provision of quarantine are the responsibility of the Australian Government. A report of the first meeting of the National Cabinet detailed how the Prime Minister shocked state and territory leaders by arriving at the meeting without a quarantine plan. As detailed in Chapter 2, the states and territories were subsequently required to set up and pay for hotel quarantine on short notice and without adequate preparation.
3.5
The Australian Government has persisted in its claim that hotel quarantine has been 99.9 per cent successful and used this as a defence against its failure to deliver purpose-built quarantine facilities at the outset of the pandemic. This claim fails to recognise the impact on communities of breaches of hotel quarantine that led to significant outbreaks, clusters of infections and
months-long state lockdowns.
3.6
In April 2021, then-President of the Australian Medical Association (Western Australia), Dr Andrew Miller, noted that of those international travellers who tested positive on arrival, about 1 in every 200 would result in a leak to the community. Data provided by the Department of Health indicated that of 21 instances of COVID-19 transmission in hotel quarantine to June 2021, 11 instances resulted in transmission to other travellers in quarantine and seven resulted in transmission to quarantine workers. Six instances resulted in community transmission, each triggered by only a small number of source cases.
3.7
While the number of breaches of hotel quarantine may appear small, the consequences were not. A single case of COVID-19 in the Stamford Hotel in Victoria sparked more than 19 000 cases and 112 days of lockdown. A case of transmission between rooms in the Playford 'Medi-Hotel' in South Australia, resulted in 63 cases and 14 days of lockdown. On 15 June 2021, a driver transporting international flight crews from the airport to hotel quarantine in Sydney tested positive for the Delta variant of COVID-19. Before showing symptoms and being diagnosed, the driver had already spread the virus, and within days the city was forced into a lockdown that would last 15 weeks.
3.8
Breaches of hotel quarantine have occurred in every Australian state, resulting in costly lockdowns and devastating health, social, and economic consequences. Lockdowns in Melbourne and Sydney are estimated to have cost between $100 million and $140 million a day in lost economic activity.
3.9
As one epidemiologist observed: 'It was a good quick and dirty solution in April 2020, but since then we have seen and suffered from the limitations of such a system.'
3.10
Dr Miller described hotel quarantine as 'this thrown-together amateur system', stating:
During Western Australia's February [2021] lockdown, I implored the community to demand what it is entitled to: a professional, high-standard quarantine system, run by quarantine professionals in a much safer manner than it is now.
3.11
The report of the National Review of Hotel Quarantine in October 2020 recommended that options for new models of quarantine should be developed and that the Australian Government consider the establishment of a national facility for quarantine, to be used for emergency situations, emergency evacuations, or urgent scalability. The review noted:
The Australian Government has the capability to declare a human health response zone, as seen with evacuations of early quarantine cohorts to national facilities or State/Territory facilities gazetted for this purpose, including the Learmonth RAAF [Royal Australian Air Force] base or immigration detention facilities, and the Northern Territory's Howard Springs facility.
3.12
The Australian Government resisted calls to establish more appropriate quarantine facilities and the Prime Minister appeared to dismiss the review's recommendation regarding the need to expand Australia's national quarantine capability, stating that the Howard Springs facility was already in place to provide emergency-surge capacity.
3.13
However, despite the facility being used sporadically in the early stages of the pandemic, it was not until 16 October 2020 that an agreement was reached with the Northern Territory Government to use the facility as a designated quarantine site. It took until 5 March 2021 for the Australian Government to announce that the capacity of Howard Springs would be increased from approximately 850 people per fortnight to 2000. This work was not completed until late May 2021.
3.14
The states responded constructively to the review's recommendations and submitted proposals for alternate quarantine facilities for the Australian Government's consideration. The Australian Government was characteristically slow in its response.
3.15
In January 2021, the Queensland Government provided the Commonwealth with two proposals for dedicated quarantine facilities at Gladstone and Toowoomba. The Australian Government rejected both proposals and it was not until 16 August 2021 that it signed a memorandum of understanding with the Queensland Government for the establishment of a Centre for National Resilience to be built at Pinkenba.
3.16
The Victorian Government submitted proposals to the Australian Government for two potential quarantine sites at Avalon and Mickleham in April 2021. While the Australian Government progressed discussions with the Victorian Government on the Mickleham facility, it was not until 4 June 2021 that it formally accepted the proposal.
3.17
Of the three agreed facilities, only Mickleham is complete and operational at the time of tabling this report. Hotel quarantine remained the mainstay of Australia's quarantine program for international arrivals during 2020 and 2021.
3.18
The Government’s Bullsbrook hotel quarantine facility in Western Australia is not expected to be completed until June 2022, long after domestic and international borders have reopened.
Overseas Australians
3.19
While the closure of Australia's international border bought precious time in which to vaccinate the Australian population, tens of thousands of Australian citizens and permanent residents stranded overseas were effectively abandoned by the government.
3.20
From the date that international borders closed, the Australian Government argued that the primary responsibility for citizens trying to return lay with the individuals themselves. This ambivalence to their plight is summed up in the Prime Minister's statement that 'there's been many opportunities for people to return. If they're choosing to do so now, they have obviously delayed that decision for a period.'
3.21
Committee members were dismayed to find officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) continuing this line some 12 months later:
People are registered because they wish to return at some point. So, to say how long they've been on there—they could have been on there for a long time and its not that they haven't had the opportunity to take a flight but that they haven't chosen to take a flight that's been offered to them.
3.22
The Australian Government attempted to shift blame to the states and territories, stating that while it was committed to returning more Australians home, it was constrained by the incoming traveller caps determined by states and territories, without acknowledging that incoming traveller caps were directly limited by the hotel quarantine system.
Home by Christmas
3.23
Australians overseas faced a wide range of challenges during the pandemic: separated from their loved ones, missing personal and family milestones and events; experiencing financial hardship and contracting COVID in countries where health care had collapsed, among other challenges. Their situation was not assisted by promises made by the government that it was simply unable to keep. For example, in September 2020, in a media conference to report on National Cabinet outcomes, the Prime Minister said:
I would hope that those who are looking to come home, that we'd be able to do that within months and I would hope that we can get as many people home, if not all of them by Christmas [2020].
3.24
By the end of 2020, nearly 37 000 Australians were still stranded without a way to get home.
Australians stranded in India
3.25
A low point in the Australian Government's response to the plight of Australians stranded overseas was its response to travellers returning from India during a severe second wave of COVID-19.
3.26
On 27 April 2021, in response to the high proportion of Australians returning from India who tested positive for COVID-19, the Australian Government implemented a two-week 'temporary pause' on direct flights between Australia and India, and on 30 April 2021 announced a ban on Australian citizens and permanent residents who had been in India from returning to Australia.
3.27
The Australian Government also highlighted the criminal penalties (fines of up to $60 000 or five years imprisonment, or both) that would be imposed should a person be found in breach of its determination.
3.28
The Chief Medical Officer's (CMO) advice on the implementation of the travel restrictions stated that potential consequences for Australians stranded in India included a risk of serious illness without access to health care, and in the worst-case scenario, death.
3.29
Despite having done nothing wrong, these Australians were left unprotected by a government that failed to uphold its responsibility to its own citizens.
3.30
The fundamental right of citizens to return freely to their country has deep historical roots under common law and is also an important principle of international law. Legalities aside, that the government reached a point where it refused citizens entry to Australia is an extraordinary breach of its responsibility and deeply inconsistent with community expectations.
3.31
The government's explanation for its actions stated that the high positivity rate of returning travellers from India posed too great a risk to quarantine and health systems and that the restrictions were necessary to 'recover capacity' in the quarantine system.
3.32
The CMO elaborated on this point, describing it as an 'off-the-chart situation' and noting that the high positivity rate could lead to a 'failure of our quarantine system'. Inexplicably, it appears that the quarantine strategy in place was only designed to cope with healthy, uninfected arrivals.
3.33
As a result, 10 998 Australians were stranded in India—facing dire circumstances—1024 of whom were classified as vulnerable, including 209 children without their parents.
3.34
Witnesses described a of lack information from the Australian Government and a lack of responsiveness on the part of government departments. People were turning to Facebook for information because 'there isn't enough information out there, and no-one is answering the phone'. Dilin, whose child was stranded in India, spoke of never receiving more than an automated reply to emails. Similarly, Meg, who received a cancer diagnosis while in India, described how when she attempted to contact the Australian High Commission the 'phone would just ring out'.
3.35
When the Prime Minister announced on 7 May 2021 that facilitated commercial flights from India to Australia would resume with approximately 1000 Australians able to return by the end of June 2021, this represented only 10 per cent of stranded Australians in India and it was unclear how long it would take to return the remaining 90 per cent.
3.36
On 28 May 2021, the DFAT consular team advised some travellers that 'all flights from India are currently fully booked' and that there were no scheduled facilitated flights from India after 3 June 2021 at that stage.
3.37
The plight of Australians stranded overseas for long periods of time—including vulnerable citizens and children stranded in India—highlights, once again, the government's failure to take responsibility for critical areas of the pandemic response.
3.38
The government's pandemic plan should have provided a workable means of repatriating citizens early in the pandemic. Instead, when Australia's international border closed, Australian citizens stranded overseas were effectively abandoned and the government largely washed its hands of any responsibility for them until it became a political problem.
Booster rollout
3.39
On 2 February 2022, the Department of Health informed the committee that the booster program was performing strongly, with over 50 per cent of the population eligible at that time having already received the booster dose.
3.40
A month later, however, that percentage had not climbed significantly, sitting at just 57 per cent.
3.41
With supply constraints largely addressed in early 2022, poor messaging from the government inhibited the uptake of booster doses. The government's messaging focussed on 'learning to live with COVID-19' and the reduced risk of serious illness associated with the Omicron variant. The government failed to properly account for the Omicron variant's turbocharged transmissibility which more than offset any drop in virulence when compared to Delta.
3.42
The relatively low uptake of booster vaccines is concerning and once again leaves vulnerable groups—older Australians, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and people living with disability—at considerable risk.
3.43
The Australian Government must do more to prepare Australia for a resurgence of the virus in the coming months. There was no excuse for being unprepared for the last wave of infections, yet the government appears at risk of a repeat of its mistakes.
Rapid antigen test supply
3.44
The Australian Government failed in its responsibility to make RATs available to augment the PCR-based (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) testing regime: it did not strike deals with manufacturers or ensure the necessary approvals and systems were in place to supply RATs. The Prime Minister has refused to accept any responsibility for this failure. He maintained throughout the Omicron wave from late 2021 that his health advisors never suggested RATs would be needed. For example, at an address in February 2022, Mr Morrison said:
Medical advice was that the right testing process was PCR tests, not rapid antigen tests. No medical body, no state government, no one anywhere came forward and said these tests should now be used for this purpose, who were responsible [sic] providing that advice to government. Okay?
3.45
Yet, the government had long faced calls for RATs to be integrated into the national testing regime, as detailed in Chapter 2. Moreover, evidence to the Senate contends that the Prime Minister received multiple briefings throughout 2020 and 2021 on COVID-19 testing, including advice on legislative frameworks related to RATs and their use overseas.
3.46
The Prime Minister also justified the government's inaction on the basis that the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) had not approved self-administered rapid tests until 1 November 2021, leaving little time for planning and stockpiling in the leadup to Christmas. 'Prior to that', Mr Morrison claimed, 'in many states, [RATs] were actually outlawed'.
3.47
However, TGA head, Dr Skerritt, pointed to government policy for Australia's belated approvals: 'we can't formally make an approval decision until we get a signal from the government… It's a decision for the government'.
3.48
In a meeting with senior officials from the Department of Health in September 2021, the Australian Medical Association reportedly warned that the government would need to develop a national strategy to address the supply of RATs. The Association's vice-president, Dr Chris Moy, claimed he was told during this meeting that the government would not build a national stockpile of rapid tests as it 'did not want to intervene in the private market'.
3.49
RATs could have played a role in reducing infections and subsequent deaths in the Omicron wave but were either not available, or where they were available were not accessible for many people because of cost. Among other measures, the government should have made RATs available under Medicare to ensure accessibility.
Business assistance left to the states
3.50
The absence of federal government support for businesses and workers set the Omicron wave apart from the earlier economic impacts of the pandemic. As the Australian Government moved to ease the public health measures that paved the way for the spread of Omicron, it rolled back key economic support measures.
3.51
On 28 March 2021, the Australia Government ended Australia's largest fiscal support measure, JobKeeper (a wage subsidy program designed to help keep Australians employed). On 29 September 2021, the government announced that once 70 per cent of a state's population over 16 years were fully vaccinated, the COVID-19 Disaster Payment (a lump sum payment designed to help workers who had lost work or income as a result of a COVID-19 lockdown) would end. On 10 January 2022, the government reduced the rate of the Pandemic Leave Disaster Payment. Consequently, workers and businesses were left particularly vulnerable to the financial impact of the Omicron wave when it hit.
3.52
State and territory governments once again stepped up, accusing the federal government of 'stepping aside'. For example, New South Wales announced in January 2022 a $1 billion support package for businesses impacted by the Omicron wave. New South Wales treasurer, the Hon Matthew Kean MP, stated:
I was hoping to make this announcement standing beside the Prime Minister today and the Treasurer Frydenberg, but they're not to be found… These are not just New South Wales businesses, they're Australian businesses, Australians that pay their taxes to the Commonwealth government.
3.53
Victoria also announced in February 2022 a $200 million business stimulus package to support businesses to recover from Omicron, targeting hospitality and tourism.
3.54
The combined effect of workforce shortages, reduced consumer spending, and the removal of economic support measures proved to be a perfect storm for some Australian businesses that were forced to permanently close. Many businesses that have survived have exhausted financial reserves and will be poorly placed to weather another COVID-19 wave.
3.55
The government's reluctance to introduce a wage subsidy and other support measures at the beginning of the pandemic hit businesses hard. By prematurely removing economic support programmes, the government has pulled the rug out from under many vulnerable businesses and workers.
Dangerous and divisive messaging
3.56
In the government's own ranks are vocal critics of the government's policy of vaccinating children against COVID-19—despite the enormous weight of medical evidence that clearly supports the vaccination of children five years and above.
3.57
The Prime Minister should have done more to reject this misinformation and he has been unwilling or unable to bring these members of his government into line.
3.58
A member of the government used a public hearing of this committee to allege that providing COVID-19 vaccines to children was tantamount to 'treating children as an experiment'. During the same hearing, they dismissed the use of the word 'pandemic' in relation to COVID-19 as 'alarmist' due to the allegedly low number of deaths and low hospitalisation rates among children.
3.59
Whilst the Prime Minister labelled this messaging 'completely irresponsible', the claims spurred wider alarmist messaging about the safety of vaccinating children.
3.60
In other instances, members of the government have expressed support for the 2022 anti-government protests against mandatory vaccinations. Another appeared on the infamous United States-based conspiracy theory talk show Infowars to criticise Australia's public health restrictions and appeared to voice support for anti-vaccination protests.
3.61
The Prime Minister has dismissed these claims as 'unwise' and 'dangerous', but has taken no tangible steps to sanction the members or limit the spread of the misinformation. At the time at which this report was being prepared, several government senators were understood to be refusing to support government bills before the Parliament until legislation is passed to override state government vaccine mandates.
3.62
The committee understands vaccination misinformation is not considered a contravention of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989. Rather, responsibility for countering public health and vaccine misinformation is understood to rest with the Department of Health, which has at its disposal only limited tools like blocking commentators from departmental communication channels and reporting accounts to social media platforms.
3.63
The committee believes that the Prime Minister should play a stronger role reining in misinformation from members of his own government, and that this is vital to ensuring support for effective public health measures and vaccine uptake.
3.64
The committee recommends that the Australian Government undertake a review of the powers available under the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 to address health misinformation during public health campaigns or emergency responses.