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Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.

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Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, October thirty. Prime Minister Anthony Albanezi could have

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Speaker 1: breached the Ministerial Code of Conduct when he asked for

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Speaker 1: Quantus flight upgrades worth tens of thousands of dollars. The

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Speaker 1: PM says he hasn't done anything wrong. You can read

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Speaker 1: that exclusive right now at the Australian dot com. Dorayu,

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Speaker 1: salmon farmers and conservationists have formed an unlikely union against

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Speaker 1: Environment Minister Tanya Plibisek. They say she's skirting her job

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Speaker 1: by delaying a decision on an endangered species found in

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Speaker 1: Tasmania until after the next election. Australian government's COVID response

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Speaker 1: impinged on Australian's human rights, damaged the mental health of children,

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Speaker 1: exposed more women to family violence, and contributed to inflation.

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Speaker 1: Those other stark findings from a report about how we

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Speaker 1: can do it better next time. There's a global pandemic today?

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Speaker 1: How did we get it so wrong? Try not to

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Speaker 1: shudder as I take you back to twenty twenty. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I'm back. People were making videos about their sour dough journeys.

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Speaker 2: And real. Briefly, just want to show you the results

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Speaker 2: of my first bread from that sour dough that's just

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Speaker 2: gone wild.

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Speaker 1: Here parents desperately tried to entertain bored kids.

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Speaker 2: I'm Jamie and this is your place for yoga stories

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Speaker 2: and fuck.

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Speaker 1: The supermarket became a hellscape.

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Speaker 3: Engines flared at Woolworth's to Laura around seven o'clock this

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Speaker 3: morning when three women became involved in a toilet paper tussle.

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Speaker 3: Just what one cat?

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Speaker 4: No not coldplace.

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Speaker 1: Positions politicians became even more unbearable than before. You won't

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Speaker 1: be able to go to the pub because the pub

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Speaker 1: is shut.

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Speaker 2: That doesn't mean you can have all your mates around

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Speaker 2: to home and get on the beers.

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Speaker 1: And bureaucrats you'd never heard of started bossing you around.

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Speaker 1: This is a very serious topic, so please don't be

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Speaker 1: distracted by that. Most of us would prefer never to

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Speaker 1: think about it again. But now the government's come up

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Speaker 1: with a report ominously titled Lessons for the Next Crisis.

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Speaker 2: The striking conclusion I think from this report, though, is

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Speaker 2: that right now we are arguably worse placed as a

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Speaker 2: country to deal with a pandemic than we were in

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Speaker 2: early twenty twenty.

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Speaker 1: That's Health Minister Mark Butler releasing the report. Labour's creating

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Speaker 1: a new Center for Disease Control to try and ensure

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Speaker 1: we do better next time. And there are twenty six recommendations,

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Speaker 1: including better ways to manage international borders, a national medical stockpile,

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Speaker 1: clear agreement on how the Commonwealth, States and territories should interact,

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Speaker 1: and to appoint a chief Pediatrician to ensure children's rights

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Speaker 1: are not neglected next time around. While Butler sought to

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Speaker 1: present an air of reasonableness.

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Speaker 2: It is easy, with the benefit of hard sight to

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Speaker 2: second guest decisions or criticize decisions that were made in

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Speaker 2: the heat of the fight against a once in a

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Speaker 2: century pandemic.

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Speaker 1: Treasurer Jim Chalmers laid the blame squarely at the feet

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Speaker 1: of Scott Morrison.

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Speaker 4: Big decisions were taken and big mistakes were made. Those

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Speaker 4: mistakes were costly and they were inflationary.

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Speaker 1: The Treasurer is undertone. Here is the cost of living crisis.

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Speaker 1: Isn't my look what I had to deal with?

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Speaker 4: We saw some very good ideas, badly implemented and poorly targeted.

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Speaker 4: Billions and billions of dollars were wasted. The views that

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Speaker 4: we made public and clear at the time have been

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Speaker 4: vindicated by this report.

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Speaker 1: The report was particularly harsh on state governments, saying border

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Speaker 1: closures had very negative effects on food security, national supply chains,

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Speaker 1: and access to health care. We've used a voice actor

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Speaker 1: to bring you some of the report's starkest findings. The

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Speaker 1: report says the evidence suggests government responses had a devastating

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Speaker 1: impact on kids, saying it was.

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Speaker 3: Told children's rights were deprioritized to support the public health response,

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Speaker 3: and this had significant long term impacts that outweighed the

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Speaker 3: risk to children and the wider community.

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Speaker 1: On people living in nursing homes who weren't allowed to

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Speaker 1: see their families.

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Speaker 3: We heard that the restrictions made residents feel like second

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Speaker 3: class citizens without agency in the final years of their lives.

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Speaker 1: On disabled people in residential homes.

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Speaker 3: Denying family and carer's access to these settings during lockdowns

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Speaker 3: increased the risk of human rights breaches through forced isolation

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Speaker 3: and reduced basic care.

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Speaker 1: And on people experiencing homelessness.

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Speaker 3: Local governments and community organizations moved quickly to implement programs

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Speaker 3: to house in hotels those sleeping rough These were highly

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Speaker 3: successful programs that reduced risk for this key cohort through

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Speaker 3: the pandemic. In addition, measures such as increased social security

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Speaker 3: payments and eviction and rent rise moratoriums meant that rather

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Speaker 3: than increasing the number of households living in housing, stress

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Speaker 3: reduced through the pandemic. However, once supports were withdrawn, many

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Speaker 3: people were in the same position as before the pandemic,

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Speaker 3: if not worse off.

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Speaker 1: Australia's vaccine rollout was famously frustratingly slow. The reports said

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Speaker 1: that cost lives and hurt the economy.

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Speaker 3: The additional lockdowns that occurred as a result of these

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Speaker 3: delays had a direct economic cost estimated at thirty one

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Speaker 3: billion dollars.

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Speaker 1: Here's what the reports said about job Keeper.

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Speaker 3: Some policy decisions, such as excluding temporary migrants and foreign

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Speaker 3: companies from job Keeper, exacerbated skills shortages and inflationary pressures.

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Speaker 3: During the economic recovery.

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Speaker 1: Australia's economy recovered much faster than the government expected, and

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Speaker 1: the report says that meant supports like job Keeper should

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Speaker 1: have stopped earlier.

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Speaker 3: There was excessive fiscal and monetary policy stimulus provided throughout

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two, especially in the

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Speaker 3: construction sector. Combined with supply side disruptions. This contributed to

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Speaker 3: inflationary pressures coming out of the pandemic.

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Speaker 1: The report said. The home Builder scheme, which gave eligible

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Speaker 1: Australians a grant of twenty five thousand dollars towards renovations

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Speaker 1: or new home construction, was an example of a payment

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Speaker 1: that didn't consider whether the industry could cope.

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Speaker 3: The home builder program created excess demand in an industry

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Speaker 3: facing supply constraints. This has been a significant contributor to

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Speaker 3: inflation coming out of the pandemic, and the program's focus

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Speaker 3: on renovations rather than new builds added to the general

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Speaker 3: housing shortages.

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Speaker 1: Coming up. Why lockdown was particularly dangerous for people at

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Speaker 1: risk of domestic and family violence. The description by the

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Speaker 1: three inquiry chairs of what was going on inside some

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Speaker 1: homes is chilling.

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Speaker 3: Risk factors associated with family, domestic and sexual violence increased

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Speaker 3: through the pandemic. Some women were forced into lockdowns with

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Speaker 3: their abuses. There was an increase in alcohol consumption, which

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Speaker 3: is linked to higher rates of family violence. One important

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Speaker 3: risk factor. Financial stress was reduced due to the increases

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Speaker 3: in income support payments. A significant number of women and

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Speaker 3: children experienced violence for the first time, and there was

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Speaker 3: also an increase in the severity of violence during the pandemic.

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Speaker 1: This report didn't look at decisions made unilaterally by individual

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Speaker 1: states or territories, like whether or not to shut down

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Speaker 1: their school systems, but the authors make clear that lengthy

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Speaker 1: school shutdowns are still affecting kids badly.

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Speaker 3: While the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee never recommended widespread

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Speaker 3: school closures, a lack of early and clear communication on

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Speaker 3: the risks undermined public confidence, particularly for parents with school

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Speaker 3: aged children, teachers and unions. This created the environment for

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Speaker 3: subsequent state based decisions to transition to remote learning that

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Speaker 3: impacted the quality and accessibility of education throughout the pandemic.

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Speaker 1: You can read our experts analysis of the COVID Inquiry report,

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Speaker 1: as well as all the nation's best news, sport and

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Speaker 1: politics right now at Theaustralian dot com AU