There’s a long tail to the COVID response that’s affecting a lot of things. There are many changes to the way we work — working from home for example — and the way in which we interact with employees that are a direct impact of the changes made during COVID. The Australian Industry (AI) Group clearly showed in their submission the anxiety levels and the mental health impact on their members and the everyday Australians who work for them. The mixed messaging, the lack of consistent and clear communication made a challenging situation almost impossible to tolerate.
The AI Group made this statement: If we don’t come to grips with the consequences of the sometimes damaging and divisive actions of states to lock down everything from buildings and suburbs to entire states, we ignore the impacts across the community. Their testimony on the disruption to state borders, not just in border communities but to national businesses, makes clear that it was extraordinary. State and territory border closures were so disruptive they should only ever be used as a last resort. Many businesses were impacted also by localised communications and differing ‘rules’ between states which caused chaos.
The Albanese Government’s limited COVID inquiry excludes state governments from its scope. The AI Group feels this is a big exclusion given the fact that state and territory governments were responsible for implementing a lot of the measures which were contradictory and often capricious. The AI Group supports a Royal Commission into COVID with broad terms of reference.
Transcript
Senator Roberts: Ms McGrath, thank you for your submission and also for appearing in person. It’s so much better to have people here in person, when possible. Your submission states:
If we don’t come to grips with the consequences of the sometimes damaging and divisive actions of states to lock down everything from buildings and suburbs to entire states, we ignore the impacts across the community.
What are some of the damaging outcomes that support your call for lockdowns to be included as a term of reference?
Ms McGrath: That was the element that really had the most impact on our members. Our members, of course, are people and, as was the rest of Australian society, they were dealing with the challenges of the pandemic and worrying about their own health. I think we’ve clearly shown in the submission the anxiety levels and the mental health impact on our members and their workforces. The complexity of the shutdowns, the mixed messaging and the lack of consistent and clear communication made a challenging situation almost impossible to bear.
Senator Roberts: Basically, what you’re saying is that there are enormous economic impacts that possibly could have been avoided—and I think many of them could have been. Those economic impacts led to anxiety and increased mental health problems, as well as economic impacts on employers. Also, you mentioned contradictions. Something that has been said repeatedly across the whole community by individuals and businesses is that each state had different science.
Ms McGrath: They did. That’s why I referenced the bushfire response. If we think about the language that we use around bushfires, such as ‘prepare to leave’, and even just how we classify, from mild to catastrophic, the nature of a bushfire, we had none of that nomenclature when it came to the COVID pandemic. It meant that whoever was in front of the camera often used terms loosely, such as ‘essential workers’ or ‘authorised workers’. These all had different terms; often they were used interchangeably. It created great confusion amongst our members, who were trying to manage a very stressed workforce.
Senator Roberts: I will mention that we have here the Australian Health Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza, which was released in August 2019. This is a thick document, so it was comprehensively done, yet it was tossed out of the window and wasn’t even referred to. I think that led to some of the contradictions. Would you like to comment on that?
Ms McGrath: I’m not aware of that document; I’m sorry.
Senator Roberts: Let’s move on to another question. The High Court’s decision on the Western Australian border closures, the section 92 judgement, was instrumental in perpetuating border closures and certainly relied on health advice that closures were justified by the health dangers of COVID. Are you familiar with that decision?
Ms McGrath: Not particularly, but I am aware of the impact of the state border closures.
Senator Roberts: Basically, it says that border closures are within a state’s constitutional powers, providing that the state’s response is proportionate to the threat. The High Court decided that, based on the medical authorities’ advice, COVID was a serious threat, yet the health authorities at the time knew it was not. In fact, they gave me, in writing, their conclusion that showed that COVID was of low to moderate severity. If you think about the vulnerable that are a very small subset and you remove that, COVID was less severe than many past flus. Those health dangers have now been proven to be overstated, as I said, which really shows that the High Court made an interpretation of section 92 that was, in hindsight, not only not supported by the facts but also contrary to the facts; the High Court was misled. I note that your submission goes to the section 92 judgement, but it doesn’t offer a better way of doing closures. Can you expand on your thoughts around state border closures, please?
Ms McGrath: As I said in my opening statement, they really should be of last resort. The disruption to state borders, not just in border communities but to national businesses, was extraordinary. The communication often was very localised. Victoria would talk about what was happening in Victoria, not understanding that there perhaps were companies in Queensland that had trucks that needed to come to Victoria; therefore, the message was never conveyed directly to them. The role that the Ai Group played in COVID was to try to gather all these instructions and directives, translate them into easily accessible language and make sure that all our members had access to them, regardless of where they were located.
Senator Roberts: Do you consider that the responses to COVID were excessively politically motivated? Maybe that was intentional or maybe it was in ignorance. Some states ran focus groups to determine what the people thought was necessary, and yet we, the people, aren’t health authorities. It seemed to be driven by political purposes or political ends in some states, and that might have contributed to the contradictions.
Ms McGrath: I’m not in a position to comment on that. I think there are many reasons for the contradictions. One is that the people making the directives were very stressed in their own right and so perhaps were not cognitively prepared for that sort of communication. As I’ve said, everyone was making very many decisions on the run.
Senator Roberts: Your submission notes that JobKeeper benefits were paid to some companies that didn’t need the money; they made excessive profits during COVID and then refused to pay the money back. Is the answer clawbacks to recoup JobKeeper money or is the answer much tougher criteria for JobKeeper, including targeting small and medium businesses over large businesses?
Ms McGrath: When it comes to JobKeeper, as we said, carefully calibrated support is best. The challenge with JobKeeper is that it was made very quickly and was quite broad based. When it comes to public policy, as you would know, that sometimes has unfortunate consequences.
Senator Roberts: Your submission mentions mandatory COVID vaccination policies, yet it doesn’t say what about them should be investigated. Where does Ai stand on mandatory injections?
Ms McGrath: We don’t have a position on mandatory injections; our position is to support members adhering to whatever regulation applies to them. What we found challenging was, again, a mix of communication styles and a mix of messages that came out, which caused a lot of stress in understanding what their obligations were.
Senator Roberts: Just as a statement, your submission talks about the need for local manufacturing of personal protective equipment and related equipment to remove the need for stockpiling materials that degrade over time. One Nation fully supports that; we cannot be reliant on foreign countries for such products. Has Ai come up with any policy with regard to ensuring that we have the security of our own manufacturing?
Ms McGrath: Not particularly. We work with ICN in each state and with a number of different local manufacturers in sovereign manufacturing.
Senator Roberts: One of the responses to COVID from the previous government was to hand out a lot of money. We were warning at the time that this would lead to inflation and, sure enough, it has. We’re still living with the consequences of the COVID response; would you agree?
Ms McGrath: There’s a long tail to COVID that’s affecting a lot of things.
Senator Roberts: A long tail to COVID or to the COVID response?
Ms McGrath: I’m sorry; to the COVID response. There are all sorts of things—as you say, inflation, which is happening globally, but also work from home policies—and changes to the way that we work and the way that we interact with employees that are a direct impact of many of the rules that came through COVID.
Senator Roberts: On the second page of your submission you state: The existing Commonwealth Government COVID-19 Response Inquiry does include in its terms of reference a review of the responsibilities of state and territory governments and national governance mechanisms, such as National Cabinet. However, it includes the specific exclusion from the scope of the inquiry of ‘actions taken unilaterally by state and territory governments’. Given the fact that the state and territory governments were responsible for implementing a lot of the measures that were contradictory and often capricious, that would seem to be a very big exclusion.
Ms McGrath: We agree.
Transcript
Chair: Senator Roberts.
Senator Roberts: The COVID injections or vaccines raise many questions. The TGA admitted to me in Senate Estimates that it did not test them here in this country but relied on the FDA in America. The FDA in America had already admitted previously that it didn’t test them but relied on Pfizer; and Pfizer’s trials were shut down early because of the number of deaths that they had. So, when you haven’t got something consistent, it puts people under a lot of pressure, not only employees but also employers. That puts you in a difficult position, because not all supermarkets forced their employees to get injected; I think IGA didn’t. But I can imagine a Coles or Woolies employee thinking, ‘I can’t go in the back door to the supermarket, because I’m an employee and must get injected; but I can go in the front door any time I want to and stay for as long as I like as a customer.’ How do you make sense of that?
Ms McGrath: As I’ve illustrated, there are many complexities, particularly in communication and rules, that really added to the stress of the whole situation, and employers and employees were all coping with the same challenges.
Senator Roberts: And customers.
Ms McGrath: And customers.
Senator Roberts: And sometimes they were in all three roles. Your final comment on page 6 of the January submission says, ‘A root and branch review is required to ensure that governments work cohesively and respond holistically during the next inevitable pandemic, and Ai Group supports any moves towards consideration of appointing a COVID Royal Commission.’ A ‘root and branch review’ is pretty serious stuff; it would be very detailed and comprehensive and would cover everything.
Ms McGrath: Yes.
Senator Roberts: Is that because it was so variable and there were so many contradictions and inconsistencies that it just didn’t make sense to many people?
Ms McGrath: Yes, it didn’t make sense. Sometimes, there would be a minister or health officer making an announcement and we’d wait for the actual orders, and they would not be consistent with what had been announced. We would have to try to find a way to convey that to the government and ask them which directive we should listen to, and then they would try to reverse it. But it was just incredible, I think.
Senator Roberts: I can empathise with you. I remember watching Yvette D’Ath, the Queensland state health minister, laying out the law in January 2022 or 2023, saying, ‘People in cars must wear masks.’ Someone asked, ‘What about if the driver is by himself?’ and she hummed and said, ‘Yes’. There was no science behind that: sitting alone in a car, with windows up, wearing a mask. These things were not driven by science.
Chair: Is that a question, Senator Roberts?
Senator Roberts: It is a statement, backing up Ai Group’s concerns.
