Minister for Health and Aged Care and Treasurer, press conference – 29 October 2024

Read the transcript of the Treasurer and Minister Butler press conference on the COVID-19 Inquiry and the Australian Centre for Disease Control.

The Hon Mark Butler MP
Minister for Health and Aged Care

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MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: Thanks everyone for coming out today. It almost goes without saying the COVID-19 pandemic, for anyone born after the end of World War Two, was the biggest national and global emergency in our lifetimes. As we know, it took the lives directly of more than 20,000 Australians, but its indirect impacts on the health system resulted in thousands more losing their lives as well. There was immense dislocation, separation, anxiety, grief, and as the Treasurer will point out, enormous economic impacts from the pandemic and our response to it.

It is very human after an event like that to want to move on and to avoid raking over what was an enormously distressing period for our community. But we have a responsibility, particularly as a government, to examine our response to the pandemic, to learn what we did well, and in particular, to learn what we could have done better. And importantly, to build, as this report describes it, a high level playbook for the next pandemic because we know there will be a next pandemic. That is precisely what this report does.
 
I want to thank the Inquiry panel, Robyn Kruk AO, Professor Catherine Bennett and Dr Angela Jackson, for what is a thorough and measured report. It is broad and it is thematic. It doesn't seek to examine individual decisions among the literally thousands and thousands of decisions taken by the national government or by state and territory governments and it doesn't seek to scapegoat people who were seeking to act in the best interests of our country and the community. But be very clear, it's a report that does not pull its punches.
 
We all recognise, and the report certainly recognised that Australia fared very well relative to other nations, in spite of the enormous loss that we as a country experienced. In significant part that relatively good performance as a country was down to our leaders and our governments who worked incredibly hard and made some very courageous decisions. But even in even larger part, our relatively good performance as a country was down to the extraordinary willingness of our community to cooperate with decisions taken by governments. As the report describes it, and I think former Prime Minister Morrison commonly described it, it was very much a “Team Australia” effort on the part of our community. But in large part also our performance is down to some of the most dedicated and certainly best trained front line workers anywhere on the planet, workers in the health and hospital system, in aged care, in child care, in schools, in other front line areas, like retail, building, services, cleaners and so many other industries besides. I'm conscious, and I know the Treasurer is conscious that it is easy with the benefit of hindsight, to second guess decisions or criticise decisions that were made in the heat of the fight against a once in a century pandemic, and we are very conscious not to do that. But we have to learn the lessons of the past. And the first lesson from this report is that, like most countries, frankly, our pandemic plans were grossly inadequate for the scale of the challenge that COVID-19 presented to us. The report makes clear, for example, that our plans, such as they were, included no plan that would deal with the closure of the international border, which was such a central part of our response. No plan to deal with quarantine, which was also incredibly important. No plan to deal with the workforce demands of a pandemic that went on for as long as it did. And as a result, to use the words of the report, our response to the pandemic was not as effective as it could have been. As a result of the lack of plans, leaders particularly were placed in the invidious position, to use the words of the report, of having to “build the plane while it was flying.”
 
Our data and disease surveillance systems were, frankly, simply not up to the task. The report talks about the use of paper systems, the use of facsimile machines. I know as Health Minister coming into office in 2022, I was unable to get really important data about the people who were dying of COVID in hospitals, their vaccination status, their indigeneity, a whole range of other things that are critically important to putting together a good evidence-based response to the pandemic. Another really important insight from the report, one of the most important insights, I think, is the lack of a shift through the course of the pandemic between a very understandable approach based on the precautionary principle. At the outset, lock everything down, take a precautionary approach while we start to understand the scale of the challenge. The lack of a shift from that position in the early months to a position that was more evidence-based that balanced risks and benefits, took account of non-health impacts of decisions being imposed on the community, by governments, by leaders, and did so in a proportionate way. That is a really compelling insight from this report. Relatedly, the inquiry report points to a lack of transparency around the rationale and the evidence behind decisions that were taken by governments that had such a profound impact on the lives of Australians and the freedom of Australians. That is a really important insight in from this report. There are also very important insights at a more specific level around the impact of the slowness of our vaccine roll out, something that's been the subject of lots of commentary. The failures in aged care, particularly in that first year in 2020 when so many residents of aged care facilities, particularly in Victoria, New South Wales, were lost to us. And the stark inequity between the experience of particular groups in the community particularly, different groups from a culturally and linguistically diverse background, but also temporary visa holders. A really important insight from this report.
 
The striking conclusion from this report is that right now, we are arguably worse placed as a country to deal with a pandemic than we were in early 2020 for a range of reasons. Firstly, because there has been really significant scarring on our healthcare systems and the health workforce. A workforce that is exhausted by the demands of a once in a century pandemic that's gone on for years. The Australian Public Service, has lost key personnel who learned a lot through that pandemic, but have moved on from their positions, often through exhaustion. As I'm sure the Treasurer will talk about governments are in much more significant debt than they were before the pandemic. But crucially this report says that a number of the points I have already made about the lack of real time evidence based policy and the lack of transparency has driven a large decline in trust, which the panel members say, and these are their words, means that many of the measures taken during COVID-19 are unlikely to be accepted by the population again.
 
The erosion of trust is not only constraining our ability to respond to a pandemic when it next occurs, but we know it's already bled into the performance of our vaccination programs, including our childhood vaccination program. Since the beginning of COVID in 2020, for example, we've seen a reduction of seven or eight percentage points in the participation in the whooping cough vaccination program for under-fives and the measles vaccination program for under-fives, which means that we are now well below herd immunity levels for those two really important diseases. The erosion of trust has had very significant impacts on the community.
 
Can I say that this inquiry received a really huge response from the community. A very substantial numbers of submissions, participation in the processes of the inquiry. There are 26 recommended actions for the national government, 19 of them are recommended to be prioritised over the next 12 to 18 months, seven in the longer term. Cabinet considered this report yesterday and appointed PM&C, Prime Minister and Cabinet to lead a cross-government task force to work through those recommendations and come back to the Cabinet. Without doubt, though, the most important recommendation from this report is the establishment of a Centre for Disease Control, a CDC. As you know, Australia, at the beginning of this pandemic, was pretty much the only OECD nation without a central, authoritative Centre for Disease Control, and it was an election promise from Anthony Albanese made in one of his Budget reply speeches to close that gap and to establish a CDC here in Australia. The Treasurer approved $90 million in a previous Budget to establish an interim CDC, which is now operating within the Department of Health. It is undertaking for participating, for example, in our stress testing of our ability to respond to an avian influenza event. And doing a range of other preparatory work, as the inquiry report makes clear to establish a more permanent body.
 
Today, I can announce the government is investing $251 million over the forward estimates, as well as funding ongoing to establish an independent, authoritative Centre for Disease Control, to commence from the 1st of January 2026. Legislation will be introduced into the Parliament next year to set out its independence and its functions in clear legislation. It will be headquartered here in Canberra, as is recommended in order to be close to national decision making. Its functions will very closely reflect the recommendations from this report. Importantly, this is something that we have been working very closely with states and territories about. And relatively recently, the state and territory health ministers, by resolution, indicated their support for a CDC to be established at a national level.
 
The first priority of the CDC will be to establish a comprehensive, joined up data and surveillance system in partnership with states and territories, but to have a single, comprehensive real time data and surveillance system. And for our surveillance capability to be world leading, including our use of wastewater surveillance, which we know has been so important. The CDC will be also responsible for providing independent evidence based advice about particularly a pandemic response, but more generally, our responses to communicable diseases. It will also be responsible for engagement with regional and international partners. And I have to say, as I've engaged with a number of my colleagues from other countries, there is a huge enthusiasm among likeminded countries for Australia to close that gap in the global network, and for there to be a single authoritative body for CDC’s, from the US, from Europe and so many other countries besides, to engage with an important partner like Australia. It will also obviously be responsible for leading pandemic planning and stress testing, of our ability to respond to a pandemic, in partnership with relevant departments, including my own, the Department of Health, and the National Emergency Management Authority, NEMA.
 
This is an enormously valuable report from Robyn, Angela and Catherine. And again, I want to thank them for the work that they did. I want to thank the secretariat from PM&C that worked so closely with them, and to all of those Australians who participated in this important process. Today's $251 million investment by this Government is really an opportunity to lay a foundation for Australia's future pandemic preparedness. I’ll hand over to you, Jim.
 
TREASURER, JIM CHALMERS: Thanks very much Mark, for all of the work that Mark’s put into this. He briefed the Cabinet yesterday, and we're releasing it today, really as soon as we could, after Mark was able to take the Cabinet through all of the details. This is a really comprehensive and it's a really considered piece of work. It reminds us of the scale of the pandemic, which was a period that altered every aspect of life in Australia for the best part of a couple of years. It was a crisis big enough to push Australia into recession for the first time in almost three decades. It did require rapid and extraordinary policy responses, and these had profound short and longer-term impacts on the Australian people but also on their economy.
 
As Mark said, we should be incredibly proud of the remarkable resilience shown by our people, our workers, our businesses and we owe it to them to learn the important lessons which are clearly and comprehensively detailed in this report that we are releasing today. Mark touched on the health response, but the consequences of the economic policies developed through the pandemic also continue to be felt right across our economy, even today. Big decisions were taken and big mistakes were made. Those mistakes were costly and they were inflationary. A big, substantial economic response was warranted by the pandemic, it was essential. But the report says, and I quote, “there was excessive fiscal and monetary policy stimulus provided throughout 2021 and 2022, especially in the construction sector. Combined with supply side disruptions, this contributed to inflationary pressures coming out of the pandemic.” That's on page 17. The modelling cited in the report says that the extended policy support, which didn't always move in line with the health advice, meant that peak inflation was at least two percentage points higher than It could have been.
 
On the design of the economic response we saw some very good ideas badly implemented and poorly targeted. Labor called for and supported programs like JobKeeper, but we were very, very clear at the time that the support should have been rolled out faster and that it should have been better targeted. Because if it was better targeted, we could have provided more assistance to those who genuinely needed it by wasting less on the businesses, in particular, who didn't need JobKeeper. And we know subsequently that billions and billions of dollars were wasted. The views that we made public and clear at the time have been vindicated by this report. On JobKeeper, it says that the exclusions made it less effective, disproportionately impacted women and casual workers, including in the care economy, early childhood education, in universities, and also for workers in aviation. At the same time as JobKeeper overcompensated some businesses, which resulted in a lot of waste. The lack of planning, the delayed roll out, and the design choices of JobKeeper exacerbated skill shortages and inflationary pressures in our economy.
 
On the HomeBuilder Program, the report makes it clear that that overheated the industry and contributed to inflation in the post pandemic era, with many Australians experiencing the consequences of this now, through higher inflation and through lack of access to housing. It's also particularly critical of the early release of superannuation, which was not an appropriate policy response and shouldn't be deployed again. They see the existing hardship provisions as sufficient for these kinds of events. It also concludes that the slow vaccine roll out had economic consequences as well. It delayed the reopening of our economy by months, at great cost to the economy. And overall it highlights poorly targeted policies which contributed to Australia's post pandemic inflation and the dramatic decline in real wages growth, which we've now started to turn around.
 
Now we know that global supply shocks are a big part of the inflationary challenges and pressures in our own economy, but that was compounded by some poor policy choices during the pandemic and its immediate aftermath. And this was made worse by the Coalition's budget in March of 2022, which was more stimulatory than necessary.
 
At a time of high and rising inflation the Coalition's final Budget had around $40 billion in net policy spending, no savings measures, and at bank, much less revenue than we have been banking. In contrast, since then, we've delivered back-to-back surpluses, we’ve found almost $80 billion in savings, and we've returned 82 per cent of revenue upgrades to the Budget.
 
When we came to office, inflation was much higher and rising, now it is lower and falling. We inherited inflation with a six in front of it, we've halved that, and we've got real wages growing again, and we'll know more about that tomorrow when we get the September quarter CPI. But the conclusions in this report and the progress that we've made since COVID are proof of why our responsible economic management is so important. We’re focused on fighting inflation, delivering responsible cost of living, relief and repairing the Budget without ignoring the risks to growth.
 
CHALMERS: We’ll go Rosie, then Phil and then Claire.
 
JOURNALIST: Mr Butler, given the report is critical of state governments; it talks to border closures, school closures, overlooking mental health, human rights. Was it a mistake for the Albanese Government to exclude unilateral decisions of states from the terms of preference?
 
BUTLER: I said at the time Rosie that thematically, the whole of the COVID response, was going to be within scope of this panel, and I think the report reflects that. I said at the time that I didn't think it was going to be a valuable use of time and resources to go through every one of the literally thousands and thousands of decisions taken by different governments and seek to second guess them. But the point I made at the time is reflected in this report. The report seeks not to second guess the decisions of the past, but to learn the lessons to ensure we have a high level playbook for the future. And a really important insight is, as I said earlier, that we didn't shift in time as a country to a real time, evidence-based approach to policy decisions. Look the report at a number of points through it points to the impact on children and young people of that. School closures, restrictions on playgrounds, and whether they were evidence-based decisions, rather than decisions guided by the precautionary approach which was appropriate in the very early stages of the pandemic. That is the insight that's relevant, not whether a decision A, B or C should have been made differently, but that for the future, the CDC should give us the capability as governments and communities to have a good evidence base for making decisions that, for example, impact children's children and young people. That balances risk and benefit, that takes account of non-health impacts, particularly the mental health impacts, which is a recurring theme of this report. The nature of the report, the measured way which in no way pulls punches, that the panel seeks to direct us for the future, really vindicates the way in which we design this inquiry.
 
JOURNALIST: Treasurer, just on your criticisms of the government's economic response; I clearly remember you calling for a vaccine payment. I reckon it was about 6 billion or something, and you were describing that as a stimulus. You criticised the Morrison government when they started winding back that. saying they should be spending more. And at some stage you even said in layman’s  that they should even buy Virgin Airlines during the crisis. And I think the Coalition estimated that if they had done everything Labor demanded, we would have spent an extra $70 billion. Isn't it the case that under your criticisms at the time, the inflation crisis now would be even worse than it is because of all extra money that would have been poured into the economy?
 
CHALMERS: No, that's not the case Phil, and the reason for that is because we were saying at the same time that they were spraying around tens of billions of dollars on companies that didn't need JobKeeper –
 
JOURNALIST: Did you say it at the time? I don’t recall that.
 
CHALMERS: Yes, I was and I distinctly remember making the point that if the then government wasn't wasting so much money on JobKeeper on businesses who didn't need it, they could afford to look after the people and workers and businesses that did need it. I can recall making that point, for example, in Cairns, when it came to tourism operators, we made the point about Dnata in the aviation industry, we made the point about university workers. And I'll make that same point again today and I think our approach has been vindicated by the report today, which is if we hadn't wasted so much money on businesses that didn't need it, we could have afforded to do some of these other steps. Now the point that you make about the vaccine payment is also an important question, because what the report says today is that there were economic costs and consequences to the slow roll out of the vaccine. And what we tried to do when we were in Opposition was to be as supportive as we could of the government, to support them where we can, to offer constructive proposals to speed up the vaccine roll out, for example, and also to support, in principle, some of these big outlays. But we made the point then, and the report makes the point now that a lot of that spending could have been better targeted. And I don't think anybody objective would argue against that point today.
 
JOURNALIST: Minister Butler, the report extensively goes into the breakdown of trust that now exists between the Australian public, leaders of governments, but also health officials. You’ve acknowledged that yourself. How do you rebuild that trust, and is it possible that part of it has to be in acknowledging some of the specific measures that were unfair? Do people deserve an apology for being told their kid can't play at a playground, or that they can't go interstate for a funeral?
 
BUTLER: This is going to be a long, hard road to get trust to the level it was before the pandemic. It's easily lost, it's hard to build it back up, is the insight. And the establishment of an independent, authoritative body that is seen as distant from government, that is able to provide fearless advice to the community and to governments that I think will have a reporting function, to Parliament that will be transparent, is a critical central ingredient in rebuilding that trust. But as all of you know that you know the pandemic did fuel a lot of misinformation and disinformation, which particularly was fertile in in health, and that is not going to be easy to battle, frankly. We need to build the structures. We need to give the community confidence that in the future, decisions will be taken at an appropriate time on the basis of real data, Australian data, not overseas data, which the report makes clear we had to use because we had no data of our own, even though UK and US data was telling a very different picture to a population like Australia's that had different vaccination status. We use our own data, and we use evidence-based approaches that, as I said, in response to Rosie's question, balance risks and benefits, takes a proportionate approach and thinks about non-health impacts as well as the direct health impacts.
 
CHALMERS: Can I just add to that very briefly, part of rebuilding trust is being upfront about where governments can do better, and that's what today's about.
 
JOURNALIST: To pick up on that. I mean, the CDC is one thing if there is a future health emergency, and the report does make clear, you know, governments in an emergency should communicate information better and that sort of thing. But I think the report also does sort of make clear that this is a broader response, not just about trusting the government in that particular circumstance of an emergency it's rebuilding trust more broadly in institutions, in in doctors, in, you know, experts and that sort of thing. I mean, how do you accomplish that? This is an issue that is not, you know, this is broader than COVID it’s broader than the Australian Government. I mean, erosion of trust in institutions is a global trend. The big question is how do we deal with that?
 
BUTLER: This report has a pretty big scope. It doesn't go to those society wide, global wide challenges. It seeks to do what it can in  in the sort of lame way that we have in front of us. I think the other point around trust and transparency the report makes is, this is no criticism of Prime Minister Morrison, but he effectively had to build a structure within a couple of days to bring governments together. And it was very much one built on relationships, rather than pre-agreed structures and transparency in reporting. And over time, as that the sort of unity started to break down, and different jurisdictions took slightly different directions, in some cases substantially different directions. Again, the community got confused by differences in messaging.  They're not easy things to deal with, but the task force that PM&C has been asked to establish will work through the recommendations that the report deals with in that area, as well as the more health specific areas.
 
JOURNALIST: It does talk about the secrecy of national cabinet specifically. I realise this is out of the remit of both of you here at the moment but do you think it needs to be addressed?
 
BUTLER: That's a recommendation that the taskforce is going to have to work through and come back to Cabinet about.
 
JOURNALIST: Just on the establishment of the CDC. I mean, this was an election promise, and here we are 6  from the next election. Should you have brought ledge for this sooner? Are you aiming to have it passed before the election, or is it an issue for the next Parliament? Have you talked to the Opposition about the plans for this already? And there was also a medium-term recommendation around getting ready. The panels seem to have been quite critical around school closures and the lack of evidence for that, but it was done anyway, but there is a medium-term recommendation around making sure that there's better preparedness for remote learning. Should that be something that's happening quicker than
the next three or five or ten years?
 
BUTLER: There's a bit in that Katina. That really goes to the point that a number of the recommendations extend beyond Health and Treasury. There are recommendations around our sovereign capability in areas like protective equipment, infection control equipment, vaccinations and so on that will be the province of the industry department. There is this recommendation about capability for remote learning that the education portfolio will obviously lead on. We only received the report on Friday. We only considered it in cabinet yesterday. The fact that is a medium-term recommendation does not mean that education might not think about it sooner than that, if there's merit in that, but that's really a matter for Minister Clare. In response to your questions about the CDC, we took a decision that we should not seek to define its functions before we receive this report. And that the proper thing to do was to wait and see the report as it was sort of rolling out, to make sure that there was alignment as far as possible. And as you will see, as we produce further material about our announcement today and examine this report, there's very strong alignment there. The roll out position will be we're committed to having the new permanent CDC commence on the first of January 2026 legislation will be presented to the Parliament next year. I can't give you a date exactly when that will happen, but it will be next year. This will be an independent statutory agency, a non-corporate entity. In the health portfolio about the Therapeutic Goods Administration, it's that with an additional level of independence, it will not be reporting to the Secretary of the Department, it will be reporting to the health minister. It will have much more independence than some of the other health agencies do as well. In the in the meantime, the interim CDC, which is operating within the Department, is starting to build these functions as well.
 
Another reason for a bit of delay, frankly, was we took the view we needed full throated support and involvement from states and territories. If this did not have the support of states and territories which are on the front line collecting this data, the thing would fail to launch. And we have got that. We've worked very hard at a politicians or ministerial level and at a bureaucratic level to get really strong sign on for the jurisdictions and I'm confident we've got that.
 
JOURNALIST: The report recommends Treasurer a review of cash flow bonus, the various supplements, access to super, HomeBuilder, which the auditor general's had a quick look at and pandemic leave. Will you follow through with those recommendations? Will Treasury be doing that, or will you look at an independent series of investigations into those programs?
 
CHALMERS: We're interested in learning the lessons from the decisions which underpin some of those policies, which have been criticised in this report. As Mark said, we've asked PM&C to coordinate our response to all of the recommendations, and so we'll be part of that process. But when it comes to an economic toolkit, obviously that makes a lot of sense, when it comes to learning the lessons from some of those policy failures obviously we're interested in doing that in one way or another. But the precise form of that will be determined by the work that Anthony's Department leads.
 
JOURNALIST: Minister Butler, just want to know, honestly, your opinion, do you really think that another government body like the CDC is going to regain Australians trust when they've already lost so much in the government? What more needs to be done?
 
BUTLER: We can't put the entire load on the shoulders of a CDC. As I said earlier, trust is easily lost, it's hard to regain. This is going to be a long, hard process, but I think the Australian community having a sense of confidence, which will build over time. I think that there is an independent agency that engages with its equivalence overseas that uses good research, good evidence to provide advice to governments about a response to a crisis like this. It's exactly what the Australian community was crying out for. They wanted transparency, and they wanted to understand the rationale and the reasons behind decisions governments were taking that had such a significant impact on them and their children. The CDC is central to being able to give the Australian community confidence in the future, that is what they'll have.
 
JOURNALIST: Will the CDC be more powerful than the state chief medical officers, or will the state still be paramount, even with the CDC? Or will the states be able to still do their own thing, or will we now have a centrally coordinated system of protocols?
 
BUTLER: The CDC will not have power to direct states. States still have their public health legislation, with their own systems providing advice from their chief health officers to health ministers and premiers and so on. We're not seeking to take that over. What we're seeking to do is to have a central, national, authoritative source for first of all, what's going on, world leading surveillance, real time data sharing that flows both ways between jurisdictions, and a strong evidence-base for a response. That, as I said, balances risk and benefit, takes account of non-health impacts.
 
JOURNALIST: That will supplant the chief medical officers?
 
BUTLER: No, the health protection committee remains. The Health Protection Committee, the AHPPC, as people became very familiar with through the pandemic, will have the head of the CDC on it.
 
JOURNALIST: The report makes the point that with the benefit of hindsight, there was excessive fiscal and reserve bank monetary policy stimulus. Do you think, with the benefit of hindsight now that maybe in your first Budget in October, you might have done more to address that excess? And also, they mentioned that a stronger focus on the supply side rather than demand side, would have actually mitigated some of this. And this is on your watch, I guess, time wise, you're not responsible for what happened before, but you are since, do you think, with reflection, that more could have been done from your end?
 
CHALMERS: First of all, we haven't ignored the supply side. A number of our investments over three budgets have been about recognising that there are supply side challenges in our economy. When it comes to budget repair, if you consider the difference between the March 22 Budget and the October 22 Budget, it's like night and day. There were precisely zero dollars in savings in the March 22 Budget and there were tens of billions of dollars of savings in the October 22 Budget. And that shows the lengths that we were prepared to go to over three Budgets now to clean up a lot of the mess that we inherited from our predecessors.
 
There was a lot of debt in the Budget, and our view before the election and after the election was that we didn't have enough to show for it. And we've now, because of our responsible economic management, avoided $150 billion of that debt and saved about $80 billion in debt interest over the next decade or so. By banking more of the upward revisions to revenue, by finding almost $80 billion in savings, by knocking out two Budget surpluses for the first time in almost two decades, that shows how seriously we took our responsibilities, which was to try and clean up the Budget after this period. And where your question merges with Phil's question near the start of the press conference, is we acknowledge then and we acknowledge now that a very substantial fiscal response was warranted, but what was necessary then, and what is very clear now, is that some of the wastage and some of the policy design was costly and it was inflationary. And I think it's a stunning conclusion from the modelling that was done independently, that the peak of inflation would have been a couple of percentage points lower had the design of the economic response more closely matched the health conditions and the health response. Now that's not a conclusion that we have made up. That's a conclusion which has been arrived at by an independent modeller. We were as supportive as we could be at the time. We pointed out some issues we had with the design and the targeting and the wastage. A lot of those positions have been vindicated by what we've seen today, but we recognised today and back then that a substantial response was warranted. We are paying the price still in the budget and in terms of inflation for some of the mistakes that were made then. Thanks very much. 

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