Television Interview, Sky News First Edition

SUBJECTS: COVID inquiry.

PETER STEFANOVIC, HOST: Joining us live now is the Assistant Defence Minister, Matt Thistlethwaite. Matt, good to see you. Thanks for your time this morning. We'll start off with the COVID inquiry today. The details will be laid out by Mark Butler and Anthony Albanese a little later on, but up until then, you've got the inquiry but no Royal Commission. Why not a Royal Commission?

MATT THISTLETHWAITE, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR DEFENCE: Pete, the Prime Minister and the Health Minister will announce the details of the inquiry this morning. I think the important thing is that all Australians have the opportunity to have their say about the COVID response. I think generally, Australia did a pretty good job in the COVID pandemic. We had lower rates of mortality than other nations. We didn't face the severe and extended lockdowns that most nations did, and our hospital system, importantly, wasn't overwhelmed. So, I think, on the whole, we did a pretty good job. It was generally bipartisan and that was quite important. But we can always do a better job into the future and the inquiry will focus on where we did make mistakes and how we can learn from those mistakes and ensure that we have a better response from Government and the States and other community organisations into the future.

STEFANOVIC: Okay, just back to the Royal Commission, though. By not having one, is that a broken promise?

ASSISTANT MINISTER: Well, the Prime Minister and the Health Minister will announce the details this morning…

STEFANOVIC: [interjecting] Yeah, I mean, there's plenty of video about it. He said he wants to have a Royal Commission or an inquiry and others have pointed to a Royal Commission. So, by not having one, is that a broken promise?

ASSISTANT MINISTER: Well, we're having an inquiry…

STEFANOVIC: [interjecting] So it’s not a broken promise?

ASSISTANT MINISTER: And the details will be released later on today. I don't believe it's a broken promise. Let's wait and see what the details are. I think that all Australians will have the opportunity to have their say, not about one particular government or one particular political party. It will look at Australia's response as a nation and how we can improve things into the future.

STEFANOVIC: Will an inquiry have teeth?

ASSISTANT MINISTER: I think it will. And I think that the important thing is that any Australian that wants to have say through a submission or otherwise, will get the opportunity to do that. And those that are involved will look at the response and make recommendations to government about how we can improve our response into the future and hopefully we don't have to go through these things. But I think the important thing is that we're prepared into the future and that we learn the lessons from the previous pandemic response.

STEFANOVIC: Would it be your expectation, Matt, that former Prime Ministers, former Ministers, all the key players, be compelled to appear?

ASSISTANT MINISTER: Well, let's wait and see what the Prime Minister announces with the Health Minister. But as I said, I don't think it should be about one government or another or one particular political party. The great thing about the COVID response was that it was quite bipartisan. We made some suggestions in the Parliament…

STEFANOVIC: [interjecting] It wasn't really bipartisan. The Premiers were at war.

ASSISTANT MINISTER: Well, at a national level in the Parliament, there were several important pieces of legislation that had to be implemented pretty quickly. JobKeeper was one of those and that was done on a bipartisan basis. And there were other responses that were undertaken nationally that were done on a bipartisan basis. Taking the advice of ATAGI around vaccinations, that was all bipartisan. Sure, some of the states had different responses. And I had some issues in my electorate where I had a dividing line down the middle of my electorate where there were more severe restrictions on half of the population compared to another half. Whether those types of restrictions were required, that's what the inquirer will look into and how we can better respond into the future.

STEFANOVIC: So, when you talked about at the beginning some issues that things that didn't go well, we can all know that there were things that didn't go well, it didn't go perfect for everyone, but what part of it do you not want to see again, when another pandemic and one will eventually emerge down the track, what do you not want to see again?

ASSISTANT MINISTER: As I said, I think the important thing is that we learn the lessons from the previous response and I mentioned some of the restrictions and the effect that they had in my electorate. You had different responses from different state governments, but it was all based on health advice and I think that that's the important thing that Australia understood and governments responded to that. We took the advice of the experts and in doing so, I believe that our response and the results that we got in Australia were better and certainly comparable to other nations that did a good job in response to COVID.

STEFANOVIC: Matt Thistlethwaite, good to have you with us. Thank you so much. And, yeah, the Prime Minister and Mark Butler, they'll be announcing details of that a little later on today. It'll be live here on Sky. As you would expect.

ENDS