Television interview with Minister Butler on the Today Show - 30 October 2024

SARAH ABO, HOST: Health Minister Mark Butler joins us live now from Melbourne. Good morning to you, Mark. How can you hold an inquiry into the COVID response and not include the people who held the most power at the time, the state premiers?
 
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: Premiers did cooperate with this inquiry, Sarah. And as you see, if you look through the report, the report deals very squarely with not just decisions taken by the national government, but also decisions taken by state and territory governments as well. It doesn't rake through every single one of the literally thousands and thousands of decisions taken through that really painful period. But what it does do is: it doesn't pull any punches about the basis on which decisions were taken by all governments impacting so really seriously on people's lives and people's freedoms. And there are some very, very powerful takeaways from this report to ensure we do better next time. Because although we fared very well relative to other nations in a once-in-a-century pandemic, the report does say that the lack of planning, the lack of evidence-based approaches to decision making, the lack of transparency, meant that we didn't do as well as we should have done and we must do better next time.
 
ABO: I think, Mark, as we can all appreciate, there's always a grace period with something like this, right? A pandemic that we’ve never experienced before, that there was no playbook for. We really were flying blind in those early stages. But as it progressed, things did get far too oppressive and far too controlling of the population. School closures, playground closures, a fixation on case numbers. The Inquiry found the federal and state governments severely lacked compassion. Melbournians probably felt that more than most, you're in the COVID capital now, the impacts are still being felt. It's just not good enough.
 
BUTLER: The report said at some stage after the first few months, governments should have moved to more evidence-based approaches to decision making. That would balance the risks and the benefits of particular decisions –
 
ABO: But it didn’t though, Mark. And that's the concern. I mean, I think what you’re saying is right but why –
 
BUTLER: That is the takeaway from the report. And the really important thing I think, from this report is that we need the systems in place, the tools in the toolbox that, frankly, leaders didn't have. And that's why our quick response to the central recommendation of the report to have an independent, authoritative CDC - a Centre for Disease Control - is so critical. That is a body that would have given that advice to governments would have been much more transparent, frankly, than governments were about the rationale behind these decisions that had such a profound impact on people's lives. That really, I think, is the key takeaway from this report.
 
ABO: Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think even when they were tried to be held to account, there seemed to be a collective amnesia that's set in, especially down in Victoria. But I just want to quickly move on Mark, if I could. You've been named as one of the Ministers who received free upgrades from Qantas, specifically after Labor blocked Qatar Airways from expanding services in Australia. Do you have any regrets there?
 
BUTLER: I've received four upgrades over the last ten years. I've declared them in accordance with the rules that have been in place for a very, very long time to make sure that there's transparency around that. And I'm not really sure what the allegation is, Sarah. Yes, I received an upgrade last year on a Melbourne to Adelaide flight. We fly several times a week. These things are sometimes provided literally as we're walking into the airport. I'm not quite sure sometimes whether it's a load issue on planes, but yes, there was one provided to me in the middle of last year. I declared it immediately.
 
ABO: You didn't call the Qantas CEO at any point yourself, did you, Mark?
 
BUTLER: No, I didn't, Sarah.
 
ABO: Okay. Thank you so much for your time this morning. Really appreciate it.