‘Another one’: Grim pandemic warning

Health Minister Mark Butler is warning the federal government must rebuild public trust before the “next pandemic”, after a major report into Australia’s Covid-19 response outlined grave failures.

Speed and poor communication at federal and state levels were just some of the key failings detailed in the 866-page report, which found Australians were now far less likely to follow basic pandemic response measures.

Mr Butler said on Wednesday “trust is lost very quickly” and is “much harder to rebuild”.

“The advice pretty consistently from the report is that there is a real concern that people wouldn’t respond to the directions in the same way that they did, the very cooperative, community spirited way that they did in the first couple of years of the pandemic,” he told the ABC.

“And that’s a serious concern, because there is going to be another one of these. I hope that it is not for a very long time, but there will be another pandemic.”

He said, in line with global health experts, that future pandemics could be “more deadly” than Covid-19.

“And we have to rebuild that trust,” Mr Butler said.

“And central to that is the confidence the community has that the decisions that government are making balances risk and benefits of a particular decision.”

The Albanese government has begun work to establish an Australian Centre for Disease Control (CDC), per the key recommendation made by the inquiry probing the pandemic response.

The CDC would be a central, independent body that advises on a national response to future public health threats.

Mr Butler said it would help restore trust.

“Currently, we’re the only developed country that doesn’t have that single authoritative body that can provide to governments and communities about an evidence-based approach to pandemic response and to other communicable diseases,” he said.

“So that is the foundation on which we build a system to respond to the next pandemic … much more effectively than we did to Covid.”

The report, co-authored by former NSW Health director general Robyn Kruk, epidemiologist Catherine Bennett and health economist Angela Jackson, recommended that a future public health emergency response should consider “fairness and proportionality when implementing and enforcing restrictive measures”.

The broad inquiry, announced by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in September 2023, was tasked with considering the health and non-health responses to the pandemic.

Controversially, it did not require state and territory leaders to give evidence.