Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The pandemic, as we know, changed many Australians' lifestyles. This in fact presents a challenge in interpreting excess mortality data. We know, for example, that there were fewer road deaths—a remarkable decline in road deaths—in Western Australia, for example, in 2020 and 2021. But those were more significant in states where there were significant lockdowns. When we compare deaths against expectations during a normal year—whatever that is—we expect to see natural variations in excess mortality rates. In 2017 Australia experienced an excess mortality rate of a statistically significant 2.6 per cent. Again, the ABS sees that as a natural variation. The following year we saw an excess mortality rate of minus 1.4 per cent; excess deaths were negative in 2020, at minus 1.2 per cent. So yes, we did a good job of looking after ourselves during COVID. Again, we can attribute that to closed nightclubs, fewer traffic accidents—a whole range of things that saw excess deaths decline.

It is therefore really important that we follow this data. It's where the progress in how we manage our nation's road rules came from. We have driven down road deaths by looking at the data and addressing the causes of such deaths over many years—and there's more to do.

In 2020 we saw that excess deaths were in fact negative, at minus 1.2 per cent, followed in 2021 by excess deaths at 3.5 per cent. ABS publications such as Provisional mortality statistics provide some core specific insights, such as patterns of deaths due to cancer, dementia and diabetes and whether they are in fact above or below expected ranges. But I tell those opposite that this data does not take into account changes in basic things like population size, age structure or other factors influencing mortality.

For those reasons, the ABS states that the provisional mortality statistics report is quite straightforward. They say, 'It should not be used as an official excess mortality estimate.' But it does point to specific pockets and trends of issues that, indeed, we do need to be aware of in our population. The ABS publication on excess mortality is released annually for the previous year. The most recent analysis, released in March 2022 for deaths occurring up to the end of 2021, saw patterns of excess deaths attributed to cancer, dementia and diabetes. That shows expected variations, with some weeks and years being higher or lower than baseline mortality rates for those conditions—for the excess deaths for those conditions. For example, from cancer they were higher than expected in 2021 but remained within the expected range. Deaths from dementia were, in fact, below the expected deaths in 2020 and above expected deaths in 2021. Deaths from diabetes in 2021 exceeded expected the upper threshold range for mortality for one week and was below the expected threshold for two weeks in 2021.

While we can't exactly say, given all that data and all of that overlaying information, what the exact cause of non-COVID-19-related excess deaths actually is at this stage, there are several possible reasons. One of them is, of course, the long-term health impacts of COVID-19 itself, or where COVID-19 has worsened another health condition, causing death. I was really pleased to bump into a range of health experts who'd been working on this issue very seriously. They include the very well respected Dr Fiona Stanley, who is a remarkable health epidemiologist. They are drilling down into the data around deaths, but they are very much drilling down into the data of the impacts of long-term COVID symptoms. They've said that long-term COVID impacts are, for a small proportion of the population, very real. They also say very strongly that the severity of long-term COVID impacts can be reduced by reducing the severity of the disease, including by getting vaccinated, which I hope and I know the majority of Australians will continue to do.

There are delayed deaths from existing underlying health problems due to the absence of many respiratory diseases in 2020 and 2021 which otherwise would have caused deaths in those earlier years, in turn impacting on the long-term averages and trends in this data. One of the benefits of COVID masks, the precautions that everyone has been taking et cetera is that it meant that we had much lower incidence of the flu and a whole range of respiratory illnesses that kill people. We've seen reductions in the timeliness of emergency and routine health care and diagnostic testing for elective surgeries, which also would have had an impact.

So I encourage those opposite not to stay on your conspiracy theories about COVID vaccination. I would have much more respect for the arguments you put forward if you actually drilled down into a balanced set of data and could even begin to mount an argument that looked at specific sets of data alongside the other significant trends that I have outlined today.