Speaker 1: Already and this is this is the Daily Off.
Speaker 2: This is the Daily OS.
Speaker 1: Oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It is Thursday,
Speaker 2: the thirty first of October. Happy Halloween.
Speaker 1: I'm Billy, I'm Sam.
Speaker 2: A new report into the federal government's response to COVID
Speaker 2: nineteen has found it was not adequately prepared for a pandemic.
Speaker 2: It also found that public trusting government has been eroded
Speaker 2: and that more transparency around decisions made during a health
Speaker 2: emergency is needed. Plus, it has recommended Australia establish a
Speaker 2: new Center for Disease Control. What does all of that
Speaker 2: mean We will explain in today's podcast. But before we
Speaker 2: get there, Sam, what is making headlines today?
Speaker 3: Prices rose by a two point eight percent in the
Speaker 3: year two September twenty twenty four. That's according to new
Speaker 3: figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The annual inflation
Speaker 3: figure is down from the last quarter, when prices rose
Speaker 3: three point eight percent over the previous year. This means
Speaker 3: prices arising at a slower rate than before, and according
Speaker 3: to the ABS, the slowing of inflation was driven by
Speaker 3: discounts on energy bills from federal and state governments, which
Speaker 3: came into effect in July. The cost of fuel also
Speaker 3: fell from July to September, which the ABS said was
Speaker 3: due to quote lower global demand bringing down the cost
Speaker 3: of oil.
Speaker 2: The Corruption WATCHDOCK has announced it will reconsider a decision
Speaker 2: not to investigate several officials over the unlawful Robodet scheme.
Speaker 2: Robodet was a debt collection system used by the government
Speaker 2: from twenty fifteen to twenty nineteen. It resulted in over
Speaker 2: one point seven billion dollars of unlawful debt notices. This year,
Speaker 2: the Robodet Royal Commission found several Code of Conduct breaches
Speaker 2: by senior officials who worked on the scheme. It then
Speaker 2: made six referrals to the National Anti Corruption Commission, calling
Speaker 2: for it to conduct further investigations. However, in June, the
Speaker 2: National Anti Corruption Commission said it would not pursue these inquiries. Now,
Speaker 2: the watchdog says it will reconsider its position after a
Speaker 2: commissioner involved in its decision making processes failed to declare
Speaker 2: a conflict of interest.
Speaker 3: The owners of Wakari White Island in New Zealand have
Speaker 3: launched an appeal against a conviction for breaching workplace safety laws.
Speaker 3: A volcanic eruption on the island killed twenty two people,
Speaker 3: including seventeen Australians in December of twenty nineteen. Last year,
Speaker 3: an Auckland court found the owners of the island, Wakari
Speaker 3: Management Limited, failed to uphold their health and safety obligations
Speaker 3: at the time of the eruption. The company, owned by
Speaker 3: three brothers, was ordered to pay millions in fines and
Speaker 3: compensation to victims. This week, lawyers filed an appeal on
Speaker 3: behalf of WML in Auckland's High Court, seeking to overturn
Speaker 3: the criminal conviction, arguing that tour operators who brought visitors
Speaker 3: to the island on the day of the eruption should
Speaker 3: be held responsible, not the island's owners.
Speaker 2: Day's good news. A PhD student from Tulane University in
Speaker 2: the US accidentally discovered a lost mine city in Mexico
Speaker 2: under dense forest cover. Archaeologists uncovered temples and pyramids in
Speaker 2: the city they've named Valeriana. Using laser survey technology. Researchers
Speaker 2: were able to produce a digital recreation of monuments and
Speaker 2: structures that would have existed beneath the greenery. PhD student
Speaker 2: Luke called Thomas told the BBC that the three sites
Speaker 2: were uncovered when he was quote on something like page
Speaker 2: sixteen of Google search and found a laser survey done
Speaker 2: by a Mexican organization for environmental monitoring.
Speaker 3: Okay, so, Billy, this was an inquiry into how Australia
Speaker 3: handled the COVID nineteen pandemic. Havn't done episode on COVID
Speaker 3: in a little while before we get into what the
Speaker 3: report actually said. What was the intention of government asking
Speaker 3: for this report to be written in the first place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this inquiry was announced by the government in
Speaker 2: September last year, and the aim was to understand how
Speaker 2: Australia went with the benefit of hindsight, how did we
Speaker 2: go in our response to the pandemic, not just looking
Speaker 2: at what went well, but also what didn't go well
Speaker 2: at all during the pandemic. And the intention of that
Speaker 2: is so that Australia can be better prepared for the
Speaker 2: future and for the next national health emergency.
Speaker 3: I've seen a couple of countries do similar reports, so
Speaker 3: it's not like we're the first people in the world.
Speaker 1: No, not at all.
Speaker 2: I think it's a really important thing to do, especially
Speaker 2: when something as big as the pandemic did happen. One
Speaker 2: thing to note before I get into what the findings were,
Speaker 2: I just want to point out that this report was
Speaker 2: entirely focused on the actions taken by the federal government,
Speaker 2: not by the individual states and territories who, as we know,
Speaker 2: especially as a pandemic you know, went on, they made
Speaker 2: a lot of the decisions about the pandemic, and that
Speaker 2: was actually something that the government was criticized for when
Speaker 2: they did announce this inquiry was why aren't you including
Speaker 2: the decisions made by the state and territory governments?
Speaker 3: Interesting?
Speaker 2: I also just want to mention that it was fully independent.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't the government looking into the government, or
Speaker 2: the labor government looking into coalition government.
Speaker 3: It's different governments.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was done completely independently.
Speaker 2: It was done by experts in public health, government and
Speaker 2: economic policy.
Speaker 3: Okay, so last September they said that they would like
Speaker 3: this report to be written and these independent writers are
Speaker 3: going to put it together. That report is now with
Speaker 3: us and anyone can read it. What does it say?
Speaker 2: So it was a nine hundred page report, nice and brief. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was very fun reading for my Tuesday night. It
Speaker 2: was really extensive so I'll go through some of the
Speaker 2: high level findings.
Speaker 1: First, I want to mention.
Speaker 2: That although it did get to what did not go right,
Speaker 2: and that was a large part of the report, it
Speaker 2: did acknowledge that Australia was quote unquote recognized globally for
Speaker 2: our response. And they said that although we lost too
Speaker 2: many lives, we also saved thousands, and they said this
Speaker 2: needs to be understood as we do reflect in terms
Speaker 2: of what could have been done better. I'd say one
Speaker 2: of the big findings was that trust has been eroded.
Speaker 2: They used those words a lot, that trust has been eroded,
Speaker 2: and they said that the population today are broadly more
Speaker 2: skeptical and more critical of government decision making because of
Speaker 2: how the decisions were made in response to the pandemic.
Speaker 2: And they said that the way to fix this is
Speaker 2: by increasing transparency over how decisions are made and specifically
Speaker 2: sharing the evidence that the decisions they are making are
Speaker 2: based on.
Speaker 3: When we talk about this a lot in talking about
Speaker 3: the early days of TDA, because this was kind of
Speaker 3: one of the first times where young Australians at least
Speaker 3: in our generation, had to really understand how government decisions
Speaker 3: are being made. Because it mattered about whether you could
Speaker 3: see your partner or whether you needed a vaccine, and
Speaker 3: there was a renewed sense of curiosity as to how
Speaker 3: the sausage is made in the government, and that's obviously
Speaker 3: reflected here.
Speaker 2: Yeah said that the lack of letting the public know
Speaker 2: about why the decisions were being made has resulted in
Speaker 2: the public having less trust in the government at a
Speaker 2: broad level.
Speaker 1: I want to read out.
Speaker 2: This quote from the report's conclusion that I think really
Speaker 2: sums up their findings. So the authors said, quote, many
Speaker 2: of the measures taken during COVID nineteen are unlikely to
Speaker 2: be accepted by the population. Again, that means there is
Speaker 2: a job to be done to rebuild trust and we
Speaker 2: must plan a response based on the Australia we are today,
Speaker 2: not the Australia we were before the pandemic. I know
Speaker 2: this is audio and that hearing someone read out quotes
Speaker 2: isn't the most compelling, but it I do think that
Speaker 2: the quote in this report were very compelling and very strong.
Speaker 2: There was no minxing their words, so I'll just quickly
Speaker 2: read out a little bit more. They said, quote, we
Speaker 2: cannot predict when the next global health crisis will occur.
Speaker 2: It may occur at any time in twelve months, in
Speaker 2: a decade, or beyond our lifetime, but history tells us
Speaker 2: that it will occur, and it will once again test
Speaker 2: us in ways that are hard to imagine. They also added,
Speaker 2: next time, we cannot say it was unprecedented.
Speaker 3: I take back my comment about that being soothing. That's
Speaker 3: quite disconcerting and really strong. Did the report go into
Speaker 3: how COVID impacted different groups of people differently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, went into that quite a bit, and I think
Speaker 2: a lot of what it outlined is what we would
Speaker 2: have suspected from you know, anecdotal evidence, but it really
Speaker 2: confirmed that in really concrete terms. So one example is
Speaker 2: that it looked at how the pandemic affected women's health,
Speaker 2: and it found that nearly half of women delayed accessing
Speaker 2: at least one health service during restrictions. It also said
Speaker 2: that more generally women suffered poorer mental health during the
Speaker 2: pandemic compared to men, and also that women's labor force
Speaker 2: participation was disproportionately negatively affected.
Speaker 1: Wow, but that's just one group of people.
Speaker 2: It had a whole list of how it affected different
Speaker 2: people differently. Sample It also found that people with disability
Speaker 2: were quote overwhelmingly feeling afraid and forgotten in the pandemic response.
Speaker 2: It also had a significant impact on the social and
Speaker 2: emotional development of children.
Speaker 1: And young people.
Speaker 2: For older Australians, it said that isolation was a big issue,
Speaker 2: and again there was a whole lot more there, but
Speaker 2: it was really.
Speaker 3: Interesting and it's also really important for the future and
Speaker 3: for future governments, as they say, next year, next ten
Speaker 3: is next lifetime to look at how this impacts different
Speaker 3: groups in society. And there was actually a quote from
Speaker 3: Mark Butler, who's the current Health Minister during the week
Speaker 3: he said Australia is less prepared for a pandemic now
Speaker 3: than we were in twenty twenty. Was that from the report?
Speaker 1: No, so that wasn't from the report.
Speaker 2: That was from a press conference that Mark Butler did
Speaker 2: after the report was handed down. But that stuck out
Speaker 2: to me as well. When he said that, I thought,
Speaker 2: why are we in a worse position?
Speaker 1: You know, haven't we learned?
Speaker 2: But I guess that is what this whole report is about.
Speaker 2: He did explain why he said that. He said, a
Speaker 2: our healthcare system is a lot more burnt out than
Speaker 2: it was prior to the pandemic. He also said that
Speaker 2: the Australian government is in a lot more debt than
Speaker 2: it was prior to the pandemic. And also he said
Speaker 2: that the people who were in the positions that got
Speaker 2: us through that pandemic are no longer in those positions
Speaker 2: and so that compromises our resilience.
Speaker 1: But that is why again this report is happening.
Speaker 3: So the report basically paints this picture of a period
Speaker 3: relatively unprecedented where a lot of mistakes were made. Australia
Speaker 3: did relatively okay in the world, but there's ways to
Speaker 3: do it better. What are those ways, according to the report.
Speaker 2: So overall, there were nine recommendations that the report made
Speaker 2: and they also made twenty six short and long term
Speaker 2: what they called actions to improve Australia's response. One recommendation
Speaker 2: was developing a national plan for the next pandemic and
Speaker 2: that would include the possible health, economic and social response.
Speaker 2: They also recommended reviewing the effectiveness of some economic support
Speaker 2: measures because it said the health crisis quickly became an
Speaker 2: economic crisis, which we are all very familiar with. And
Speaker 2: one of the big recommendations was to develop something called
Speaker 2: a Center for Disease Control.
Speaker 3: And when I saw this, I thought, God, there's an
Speaker 3: opportunity to not name it exactly the same as the
Speaker 3: one in the US, because that's the one in America, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the one.
Speaker 2: In the US is called the Center's Centers plural for
Speaker 2: Disease Control and Prevention.
Speaker 3: It's always bigger in America. But what does I mean?
Speaker 3: Obviously there's an international precedence here, but what would this
Speaker 3: new center or centers actually do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, just quickly, you mentioned that there's international precedents.
Speaker 2: What I didn't know that Mark Butler said in his
Speaker 2: press conference yesterday is that prior to the pandemic, Australia
Speaker 2: was the only developed country that didn't have this Center
Speaker 2: for Disease Control or an equivalent organization. I found that
Speaker 2: so interesting.
Speaker 3: Well, I guess the senior health figure we were looking
Speaker 3: to besides the Health Minister Greg Hunt at the time,
Speaker 3: was the chief Medical Officer, who was Paul Keller. And
Speaker 3: so this center would probably kind of take the control
Speaker 3: away from a government appointed doctor to more this is
Speaker 3: experts on just diseases and how they spread.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this would be a national public health body
Speaker 2: that is responsible for ensuring Australia is prepared for a
Speaker 2: future pandemic.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 2: I'm hoping that we'll never have to hear from this
Speaker 2: body in the future. But what this report was really
Speaker 2: clear in saying is that there will be a future
Speaker 2: health emergency and we need to be prepared and this
Speaker 2: body is the answer to that. So the government told
Speaker 2: us on Tuesday that the body will launch in January
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six, so in a year and a couple
Speaker 2: of months from now.
Speaker 3: You're absolutely right, that's a body that I don't think
Speaker 3: we want to be talking about on this podcast anytime soon.
Speaker 3: But nonetheless, I think that if it seems to be
Speaker 3: the way that modern health systems are dealing with upcoming
Speaker 3: emergencies of this kind of nature, that it seems like
Speaker 3: something to have in the talkit rather than not. Billy,
Speaker 3: thank you for explaining that nine hundred page report to
Speaker 3: us on today's podcast. Thank you, and thank you for
Speaker 3: joining us on The Daily Odds today. If you liked
Speaker 3: what you heard, I'd love if you could jump on
Speaker 3: our YouTube. That's where we're trying to play with some
Speaker 3: new stuff. You can click follow on our channel and
Speaker 3: that really helps us grow to an entirely new audience
Speaker 3: so more people can learn what nine hundred page reports
Speaker 3: say that's all we've got for you today, though we'll
Speaker 3: be back again tomorrow.
Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bunjelung Caalcutin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.