AFTA UPDATE

From Dean Long, CEO

THIS weekend, Victorian citizens will head to the polls for first time since the state was so heavily impacted by COVID-19.

While many issues have come to forefront during this election campaign, the values of both honesty and trust have been front and centre.

Both parties have put forward plans to kick start events and support regional tourism.

There isn’t however a focus on attracting aviation back to Victoria which is critical to get workers back to Australia and bring back vibrancy to our cities which bore the brunt of the impacts of COVID.

Once this election is complete, the Federal Government through National Cabinet must honour its commitment to learn the lessons from various governments’ COVID policies and immediately start the independent review process.

With three elections in our three most populous states in less than 12 months it was always going to be challenge to kick off reviews which will have political consequences. However with the current spike of COVID in the community, some governments seem to not want to put away their emergency powers.

An initial review funded by the Ramsey Foundation and Minderoo Foundation engaged Peter Shergold AC to review Australia’s response to COVID.

This review had over 200 consultations, 160 submissions and 3000 hours of data analysis and it identified four areas where we should have done better.

Economic support should have been provided in a fairer manner, borders should have been closed less, schools should have been kept open and older Australians should have been protected better.

The longer this independent review by Government for Government takes, the greater the potential for the lessons that need to be learnt to be lost. As businesses we were told by Government regularly to review and adapt our operations to survive.

Now we are asking Governments around Australia to do no more then they asked of us.