Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Babet for the question, and also for the heads-up on his question about an inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic. We've been clear that there should be an inquiry into the pandemic. We believe it had such massive implications across the economy, across the community that an inquiry would need to be undertaken at the right time. Our position at the moment is that we are still progressing through the pandemic. People are still becoming unwell and management plans are still in place, so that remains the government's focus to ensure that we are responding to that appropriately, but we also do believe there needs to be an inquiry. There have also been a number of inquiries conducted or that are in the process of being conducted across the states and territories. That should feed into information that we would use at the federal level.

In relation to the pandemic treaty, as related by Senator Babet, this was discussed at Senate estimates in pretty great length. There has been a lot of work done and it is useful to be part of those international discussions about how countries responded to the pandemic and to understand the lessons learned through that. Obviously, there is still the need for local lessons to be learned as well, which the department of health and others would do routinely to prepare the country in the event that there is another pandemic.

So there are pieces of work underway. We are informed by the work being done across the international community, but we don't walk away from the need for a local inquiry at the right time.