Introduction
The Morrison Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, guided by the medical experts, has delivered one of the lowest rates of loss of life and one of the strongest economic recoveries in the world.
Australians have experienced a once in a generation pandemic. It has been tough, but we should be rightfully proud that Australia is one of the few countries to come out of the pandemic stronger—saving over 40 000 lives and vaccinating over 95 per cent of Australians, protecting livelihoods and our way of life.
Strong and careful economic management meant that we could put in place the health and economic measures in line with the best advice of the medical experts to protect Australian lives and livelihoods during the pandemic.
As former deputy chief medical officer Dr Nick Coatsworth has reflected:
We can be rightly proud of what we have achieved as Australians in the face of what was the challenge of our lifetime. We will emerge a stronger, healthier and more prosperous nation for our efforts.
As mentioned in previous interim reports, 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—which is reflected in the commentary in the majority report and was at times blatantly apparent during public hearings.
Contrary to what is asserted in the majority report, the fact that this committee has heard over 200 hours of evidence from 679 witnesses at 56 public hearings, published over 555 submissions and nearly 2240 individual answers to questions on notice reflects a remarkably high degree of government cooperation with this committee, especially in light of the significant time and resources that is expended by public servants.
As mentioned in the third interim report, the parliamentary scrutiny of the Morrison Government's response to the pandemic can be compared favourably to any state parliamentary oversight. It is regrettable that parliamentary committees scrutinising the performance of state governments have only been put in place temporarily or just recently, have held few public hearings and have often been chaired by government chairs—which is not the approach that the Morrison Government took when this committee was established.
Health response
The Morrison Government acknowledged the risks and acted early, declaring the COVID-19 pandemic on 27 February 2020, before the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on 11 March 2020.
Our response to the pandemic has followed a uniquely Australian path, getting the balance right between our health and economic objectives. We have invested over $42 billion in our health response, and we have successfully suppressed the virus with a strategy of closing international borders in a timely manner, quarantining return travellers, building our health system capacity, social distancing and sensible restrictions, and strong testing, tracing and hygiene practices. We thank all Australians for their efforts.
Rollout of Australia’s highly successful vaccination program
While many other countries have reintroduced strict restrictions, we have been able to keep large sectors of our economy open and functioning while never letting our guard down on protecting Australians from future effects of the virus. This is why the Morrison Government recently finalised an agreement with global pharmaceutical company Moderna that secures the production of up to 100 million Australian-made mRNA doses every year, the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere. This landmark agreement is part of a 10-year strategic partnership with the Commonwealth, Moderna and the Victorian Government which will support local industry and meet ongoing COVID-19 vaccine needs including any other new and innovative respiratory mRNA vaccines.
Everyone in Australia aged five years and over is eligible for a free COVID-19 vaccination. At the time of this report, 95 per cent of Australians aged 16 years and over have received at least two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, making Australia one of the most vaccinated nations in the world. Boosters are being rolled out with strong uptake and primary courses are being offered to children aged five and over.
over 12.9 million people have received a booster dose which is over 67 per cent of those who are eligible, with eligibility for booster doses opening on 8 November 2021;
over 84 per cent of children aged 12 to 15 years have had one dose and over 80 per cent have had both doses;
over 52 per cent of children aged 5 to 11 years have had one dose since the program commenced on 10 January 2022;
over 91 per cent of aged care residents living in residential aged care facilities (RACF) have received two doses, and over 93 per cent of eligible aged care residents have received a booster;
over 88 per cent of National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participants living in shared disability accommodation have received at least one dose, with over 87 percent having received two doses. Over 87 per cent of eligible NDIS participants in residential accommodation have received a booster;
the rollout to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians also continues, with over 84.2 per cent having received at least a first dose and over 80 per cent receiving both doses. Over 51 per cent of eligible Indigenous Australians aged over 16 years have received a booster; and
over 94.5 per cent of NDIS workers are fully vaccinated and over 96.7 per cent of aged care workers are fully vaccinated, ensuring that our most vulnerable cohorts and essential workers are the highest priority in our vaccination program.
The data shows that Australia’s vaccination program is, by any international comparison, highly successful and we have ensured that our vulnerable populations and essential workers are at the highest priority and remain so as we secure our recovery from the pandemic.
We thank the assistance of the Australian Defence Force and the Rural Flying Doctor Services for delivering vaccines to rural, regional and remote communities.
The Australian Government takes our vaccination program and the efforts of our health professionals on the frontline seriously. On 11 August 2021, Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly noted that misinformation undermines the efforts of all those Australians who have acted responsibility and compassionately to protect their community, and that it devalues the lives of those who have suffered from COVID-19 and for those who have lost loved ones.
This is why the Australian Government has a COVID-19 mythbusting website that corrects the myths and misinformation about COVID-19, and the Department of Health launched an ‘Is it True?’ portal on 14 March 2021 in the early days of the vaccination rollout which provides reputable information on the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. The Department of Health has information fact sheets in 63 languages providing accurate, evidence-based answers to common questions about COVID-19 vaccines for multicultural communities.
It is highly regrettable that some have undermined public confidence in our vaccination rollout, such as comments by Labor’s hand-picked federal candidate in Higgins who on social media and during an episode of ABC’s Q&A baselessly undermined the safety and effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine at a critical time of our country’s vaccination rollout.
Additionally, it was particularly regrettable that Queensland’s Chief Health Officer further undermined public confidence by suggesting that she would not recommend under 40-year-olds receive the AstraZeneca vaccine.
It is likely we will see the re-circulation of COVID-19 and influenza viruses in winter, which we have not seen significant transmission of since 2019. Although it is difficult to predict the scale of these transmission events, the government is preparing for the contingency of large possible outbreaks. Therefore, the Morrison Government is investing $2.1 billion to protect Australians against COVID-19 and influenza this winter in 2022. The approach to managing COVID-19 and influenza over the winter months will focus on minimising the health impacts—with a particular focus on protect those most at risk of severe illness—while supporting the economy. The $2.1 billion investment to support Australia’s winter preparedness includes:
$1.2 billion to protect the residential aged care and disability care sectors;
$356 million to protect other vulnerable population groups; and
$571 million for vaccines.
As part of this investment, the Morrison Government has extended the concessional Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) program until 31 July 2022, in partnership with the states, and the government will purchase six months’ supply of personal protective equipment for aged care and disability requirements.
In addition, Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) has recommended an additional dose of COVID-19 vaccine to increase vaccine protection before winter for selected populations who are at greatest risk of severe illness. ATAGI has recommended that the rollout of the additional booster dose for these groups starts from April 2022, coinciding with the rollout of the 2022 influenza vaccination program to maximise our winter preparedness.
PCR testing and RATs
The majority report has exaggerated claims that the testing system had ‘collapsed’ in the Christmas 2021 period. It must be reiterated that up until 30 December 2021, the medical experts did not recommend the widespread use of RATs because of the stage in the pandemic that we were in at that time. The earlier approach to suppress community transmission while vaccination rates were still low greatly depended on the highest accuracy of testing, hence the earlier reliance on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests which have greater accuracy than RATs.
As evidence provided to this committee by Professor John Skerrit on 2 February 2022 noted:
The reason why it would have been quite inappropriate, and in fact dangerous, had we had home use rapid antigen testing in early and mid-2021 is that half of them, maybe more, would have given the wrong answer. So, you would have had people with false positives, and you also would have missed a significant number of infections.
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When you have a low prevalence of cases in the community, if it's only one per cent of those who are being tested who are positive, you have 50, 60 or 70 per cent of results from rapid antigen tests just plain wrong—false positives and a few false negatives. In the world we have now, where sadly the proportion of people who are infected with COVID is much higher, there are statistical reasons why the reliability of rapid antigen tests is much higher. That's why they were quite appropriate for New York in April 2021, but totally inappropriate for Australia in April, May and June 2021.
Likewise, the Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly also stated:
As Professor Skerritt mentioned, there was a consensus by those technical advisory groups that, in the Australian context at that time of low community transmission, rapid antigen tests were not the best way of diagnosing COVID-19 in Australia at that time. But they did recognise that there were certain times and places where they could be usefully employed. That was around the time when the initial TGA approval of point-of-care testing, as used by a health practitioner and supervised by a health practitioner, came into play.
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All throughout that process, that balance and those principles have been constant. The particular one is in the context of low community transmission, as Australia has been in for the majority of the last two years, rapid antigen tests pose problems in terms of false negative and false positive tests, and the PCR testing arrangements are and remain the gold standard for diagnosis. I think it absolutely has its place in the context we're in now, but it did not previously have such a place except for very specific places of high risk, such as in aged-care facilities.
Officials from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet gave evidence to this committee highlighting the views of the states and territories at that point in time:
The [state and territory] chief health officers and the AHPPC had a strong view that, with the case numbers that we were seeing in Australia at that time, and even if a variant arose that was more transmissible, the preference was for PCR testing, as the higher standard of testing, and that rapid antigen tests might become part of a complement of testing but that they would not be the mainstay of a testing response under the PCR testing system.
In addition, the majority report fails to acknowledge the additional burden of interstate travel testing requirements that were introduced by some states had on the PCR testing system. Evidence to the committee highlighted the federal government had planned for significantly increased demand for PCR tests as we opened up, but the additional burden of test-to-travel requirements adopted by some state governments was not foreseen as part of the nation’s reopening plan.
In December 2021, Victoria’s COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar noted the challenges of testing requirements for interstate travel had on Victoria’s PCR testing capacity:
It is not a highly productive way to use a PCR testing system, and of course, it puts additional pressure on, so the additional queues and waiting times we’re seeing at the moment are a by-product of that. We hope to move to a more sensible arrangement in future…jamming up the system with people who particularly are asymptomatic, particularly if they haven’t been close contacts, if they’re just needing tests for some other kind of bureaucratic reason – that’s the kind of stuff that I think we’d like to reduce.
Also in December 2021, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet similarly noted:
There’s no doubt that these PCR testing requirements, as the health minister calls them, the ‘tourism tests’, are putting substantial pressure on the system. And that’s just not long queues, it’s slowing down the turnaround time for NSW Health to able to process those tests and get that info back to people who may be unwell or may have COVID.
On 5 January 2022, National Cabinet agreed that up to 10 Rapid Antigen Tests over three months (a maximum of 5 in a month) will be made available free through pharmacies to people on pension, health care, DVA and low-income cards. National Cabinet also agreed that states and territories change public health orders to enable RATs to be used as confirmation of COVID-19, enabling widespread use.
Under the Australian Government's concessional RAT program, 5,620 pharmacies have delivered over 27.4 million RATs to more than 4.2 million eligible concession card holders as of 31 March 2022.
As we vaccinate our population and secure our economic recovery, the federal government has invested in securing access to rapid antigen tests. We have invested more than $1.6 billion to ensure equitable access to RATs to help detect COVID-19 and provide reassurance to Australians as we continue to live with COVID. More than 71.6 million RATs have been made available across all Department of Health delivery channels, including:
27.5 million distributed to aged care;
23.5 million accessed through pharmacies; and
19.7 million distributed through all other channels.
The Australian Government's record on securing supplies for COVID-19 tests can be compared to Labor’s ill-advised thought bubbles. Anthony Albanese has suggested the government secure RATs from a company which had not been approved by the TGA and had in fact had their product recalled in massive numbers in the United States. The federal government continues, with the advice of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), to make available RATs provided they meet the necessary regulatory requirements for reliability and accuracy.
Economic response
The economic impacts that the pandemic has brought have been significant, which is why the government has committed, as at the 2022-23 Budget, $314 billion in direct economic support to assist Australian workers and businesses throughout the pandemic, equivalent to 15.2 per cent of GDP.
The majority report has wrongly asserted that the Australian Government has rolled back economic support for workers and businesses in the reopening stage of the pandemic that we are now in. The support throughout the pandemic has been temporary, targeted and proportionate.
It has helped us steer us through the pandemic, which has seen Australia achieve better health and economic outcomes from COVID-19 than most other countries. As health restrictions have eased and vaccination rates have increased, the unprecedented level of government support provided over the last two years of the pandemic has evolved, as the pandemic has evolved.
JobKeeper
The JobKeeper Payment played a crucial role in supporting and driving the economy, keeping businesses in business and individuals connected to their employer during the first year of COVID-19.
JobKeeper provided around $88.8 billion in support to around 4 million individuals and around one million businesses, 99 percent of which were small businesses and not‑for-profit entities, and over 80 per cent of JobKeeper payments went to these entities.
The Reserve Bank of Australia estimated that JobKeeper reduced total job losses by 700,000 between April and July 2020.
Without the government’s significant fiscal support, including JobKeeper, Treasury has estimated the peak of the unemployment rate would have been at least 5 percentage points higher, and remained above 12 per cent for two years.
Pandemic response payments for individuals and support for businesses
The Morrison Government has provided COVID-19 related payments to support individuals affected by the virus or by public health restrictions throughout the pandemic.
As of 27 March 2022, $13.97 billion has been paid out in Commonwealth pandemic response payments, which includes the COVID-19 Disaster Payment and the Pandemic Leave Disaster Payment. Furthermore, the Commonwealth and state governments have injected an estimated $14.4 billion into the economy during 2021-22, with most going to small and medium sized businesses in the form of direct grants. The Commonwealth committed $7.1 billion to these jointly funded business support packaged.
Our economic record
As a result of the Morrison Government’s support throughout the pandemic, our economy has shown formidable resilience. It has outstripped the performance of most advanced economies in the world, which was greatly assisted by entering the pandemic with a balanced budget delivered by our government’s strong financial management.
Our AAA credit rating remains intact, one of only nine countries to achieve this. At 3.5 per cent, inflation in Australia running well below other advanced economies, such as 7 per cent in the United States and 5 per cent in the United Kingdom. Unemployment is at 4.2 per cent and we can now achieve an unemployment rate with a ‘3’ in front of it this year, which is something we have not seen in Australia for almost half a century.
The Morrison Government’s record in protecting lives and livelihoods compares positively to Labor’s $81 billion budget blowout in spending policies they announced during the pandemic. This includes expanding and extending JobKeeper, continuing the coronavirus supplement, and Anthony Albanese’s $6 billion vaccine incentive payment to give Australians a cash payment for a vaccine they have already received. The $81 billion in additional spending that Labor called for is the type of reckless spending that would have put at risk Australia’s AAA credit rating and create an even larger debt bill, spending that clearly was not necessary to get the low unemployment rates and economic outcomes we have achieved at the other side of the pandemic.
Senator James PatersonSenator Perin Davey
Deputy ChairMember