Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, I present Report 494: Inquiry into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's crisis management arrangements, incorporating additional comments.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—Continuing the bipartisan tradition of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, this report has been unanimously adopted. The report, entitled Inquiry into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s crisis management arrangements, is perhaps known in common parlance as 'Stranded Australians'.

Through this inquiry the committee has reviewed the Auditor-General's report on the effectiveness of DFAT's crisis management arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic. DFAT coordinated and facilitated the return of Australians who were stranded overseas due to travel restrictions and border closures.

The Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit warmly commends the officers from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for their dedicated work to assist Australians across the globe, including those stranded offshore during the pandemic and every day since. One of the most impressive things through this inquiry was the committee visiting DFAT's crisis management centre and talking with the dedicated public servants—there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year—who take calls from Australians right across the world in all manner of situations, many of them incredibly distressing, having suffered crimes, assaults and other kinds of devastating losses.

It is important, though, that the Australian Public Service, including DFAT, learn from the unprecedented global crisis that COVID-19 posed so that the Australian government will be better prepared to respond in future to assist our most vulnerable citizens during future crises. One of the things which struck us through this inquiry is that DFAT has a great track record of responding to isolated or regional crises that might affect a particular place in the world or a few countries or an event, but this crisis in the modern era was really unprecedented, and it was the global nature of the crisis, in particular, that tested the systems and preparation and frameworks that were in place and revealed flaws.

The committee supports the areas identified for improvement by the Audit Office, but we did find it peculiar that DFAT disagreed with two of the recommendations due to the framing of the recs but nevertheless appeared to act on them anyway, which was welcome.

We focused in this report on matters relating to DFAT's data capability, response coordination, assistance for vulnerable Australians and procurement practices under the government's crisis management framework, and also in relation to repatriation flights.

The committee did pay attention, however—and we received evidence, and it was a matter covered in the audit report—to the confusing and misleading public messaging to stranded Australians in 2020 and 2021. The committee clearly notes in the report—unanimously—its deep concern regarding DFAT's evidence that no advice was provided to inform public statements made by ministers in the previous government, including the Prime Minister. Remember the famous promise that stranded Australians would be home by Christmas, which was then repeated, despite a lack of advice and subsequently by advice that it actually couldn't be delivered. The committee's observation that 'government ministers have a responsibility to be as fully informed by sensible and evidence based advice from public servants as possible before making public commitments in such sensitive areas' really should not have been necessary. It's kind of stating the bleeding obvious but, nevertheless, here we are.

The committee also acknowledges that one of the key constraints on the ability of DFAT to return stranded Australians was the availability of quarantine places through much of 2020 and 2021. The committee considers, however—again, this is a key finding—that more could and should have been done by the Commonwealth later in the pandemic regarding the lack of adequate quarantine facilities, which, as I said, was one of the key constraints.

A response to the 2021 Halton review of hotel quarantine was never provided by the previous government, and so the committee makes several recommendations to strengthen the Australian government's future crisis response. I'll outline three of those recommendations. The first is:

Some of that review's recommendations are largely irrelevant with the passage of time, but others do still require and warrant a response to prepare for future crises and learn the lessons of the pandemic. The second recommendation is:

In particular, that means we need to learn from the previous government's decision to block Australian citizens from returning from India. One of the observations made through the inquiry, I think from the Human Rights Commission, was that the crisis management framework, which governments work under, is silent on the issue of human rights considerations. Ultimately, of course, the government will make the judgement, and they may choose in future crises to still make the same decision, but we're saying that decision-making needs to take into account the human rights of Australian citizens stranded overseas and not just be guided by one aspect of policy advice.

The final recommendation is:

The Committee recommends that the Auditor-General consider undertaking a performance audit of the Australian Government Crisis Management Framework and include within the audit scope whether the updated framework adequately reflects lessons learned from COVID-19.

I thank all of the contributors to this inquiry, as I said, particularly the DFAT officers who appeared at the public hearings and facilitated the committee's site inspection of the department's facilities. I thank committee members who participated, continuing the bipartisan tradition of the public accounts and audit committee.

Finally, I thank the dedicated committee secretariat, sitting over there in the box, for their support and professional excellence throughout this inquiry. They have the blessing and the burden of supporting one of the more arcane but voluminous and busy committees of parliament, so thank you to the secretariat.

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