A long-awaited and lengthy report by an inquiry into Australia’s COVID response was handed down on Tuesday.
It found that while state and federal governments nailed the early response to the virus threat, strict restrictions, poor communication, and a lack of consideration of our human rights eroded public confidence and trust.
Have you lost trust in the government after Covid? Listen to The Briefing here:
On this episode of The Briefing, Sacha Barbour Gatt investigates how Aussies feel about politicians and the government and whether this puts us in danger should we face a pandemic again.
We speak with the chief executive of the Public Health Association of Australia, Adjunct Professor Terry Slevin, to hear if he thinks we can repair what has been lost.
Mr Slevin said the report revealed that Australia did “pretty well” with its response to the pandemic, but there was no doubt that “there are stains on the souls of many people and there are long-term effects from a mental health point of view and educational point of view of some of the constraints that happened.”
The report highlights that people felt government decisions were not being communicated clearly enough, with little explanation of why certain decisions were being made.
Mr Slevin said the government could learn from lessons from the report to consider in potential future situations.
“There’s a phrase to use that I’ve heard many times during the pandemic and since, and that was that we were building the plane as we were flying it,” he said.
“That was kind of, in effect, the kind of challenge when making those decisions. The decisions had to be made on the best available information on that day as to what serious constraints were going to be applied.
“The challenge for the Centre for Disease Control is to build the plane before it takes off next time. That’s ultimately what it should do and learn from the experiences of the last flight, figure out where we went in the wrong turns, where the service wasn’t good.”