Expert panel to lead COVID-19 inquiry, but no royal commission

This week, Mr Morrison told The Australian Financial Review that if the inquiry did not have the powers to compel current and former state officials to appear, as a royal commission would, it would be obsolete.

“Any serious retrospective inquiry that seeks to go back over this ground would be obsolete if it did not require equal attention and involvement of all state and territory governments who shared in Australia’s response to this one-in-a-100-year event,” he said.

A royal commission would require the willing co-operation of the states in that they would have to provide joint letters patent.

A Labor-led Senate committee established during the pandemic to ensure accountability in the absence of parliament sitting, recommended a royal commission. “The committee recommends that a Royal Commission be established to examine Australia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic to inform preparedness for future COVID-19 waves and future pandemics,” it said.

Despite its heavy criticism of the Morrison government throughout the pandemic, and its calls for an inquiry, Labor has prevaricated since coming into government, arguing that the nation was still wrestling with the coronavirus.

In May, the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 was no longer a global emergency.

The government’s critics suspect it is trying to shield from criticism and scrutiny Queensland’s Annastacia Palaszczuk and Victoria’s Daniel Andrews, both Labor premiers and, along with the ACT’s Andrew Barr, are the last pandemic-era leaders still in power.

Ms Palaszczuk faces an election by October next year, but there is widespread speculation she could step aside or be pushed before then. Barr also goes to the polls next year.

Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie told Sky News that anything short of a royal commission would constitute a broken promise.

She accused the government of wanting to protect Mr Andrews, who instituted the most prolonged shutdowns in the world, and Ms Palaszczuk who shut her borders to NSW at great inconvenience to border residents.

At the same time, it might make favourable findings about how the national cabinet functioned and “kept us safe”, she said.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has said previously any inquiry without powers to examine the role of the states would be little more than an anti-Coalition witch hunt.