Almost five years since the COVID‑19 pandemic broke out, for most Australians there is a collective desire to move on and forget what was an immensely difficult period. There is undoubtedly much to forget, but there is also much to be proud of as a nation.
Our hope is that this Inquiry will ensure that the immense body of work undertaken by individuals, community organisations, businesses, universities and research organisations, and government will be recognised into the future. There is also, importantly, much to learn from our collective experiences.
Our objective in undertaking this Inquiry was to document what worked and what could be done better for a future crisis, and to ensure that the lessons are learned so that we are better prepared for the next pandemic. With individuals and communities less prepared to change their behaviour we will not be able to simply rely on what worked during COVID‑19, and must learn the lessons to ensure a future response is effective.
We heard from many individuals across government and in the community about the toll that the pandemic response had taken. People worked beyond normal limits, and many of the public health professionals, frontline community service and health staff, political leaders, health experts and public servants we relied on to get through the pandemic are no longer in their positions. This poses risks to our resilience to face another crisis.
Trust has also been eroded, and many of the measures taken during COVID‑19 are unlikely to be accepted by the population again. That means there is a job to be done to rebuild trust, and we must plan a response based on the Australia we are today, not the Australia we were before the pandemic.
The CDC will be an important part of rebuilding that trust and strengthening resilience and preparedness, providing national coordination to gather evidence necessary to undertake risk assessments that can guide the proportionality of public health responses in future crises. However, as we continue to face more complex and concurrent crises in the years ahead, there is a need to build broader resilience in our systems.
We have focused our priority actions on building that resilience now, but it will need to be maintained over time. We cannot predict when the next global health crisis will occur – it may occur at any time – in 12 months, in a decade or beyond our lifetime – but human history tells us that it will occur, and it will once again test us in ways that are hard to imagine. Acting today will ensure in the future we are better prepared, benefiting from our learnings of what worked well and what didn't during the COVID‑19 pandemic.
Ms Robyn Kruk AO, Chair
Professor Catherine Bennett
Dr Angela Jackson