Tuesday, 25 August 2026

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (21:57): (2716) My adjournment matter this evening is for the attention of the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is for the minister to immediately table the completed independent review of Victoria’s pandemic management laws, as required under section 165CX of the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008. Victorians would well remember the extraordinary powers contained in the pandemic management legislation passed by this Parliament in 2021. Those laws provided extraordinary powers to government, including the power for the Premier to make a pandemic declaration and for the health minister to make pandemic orders affecting the lives, livelihood and freedoms of all Victorians.

When Labor introduced these extraordinary pandemic powers in 2021 it told Victorians there would be safeguards, transparency and accountability. In fact the then health minister specifically described the statutory review as a final safeguard and promised Parliament that its report would be published and tabled. That safeguard is now being tested. Section 165CX requires the minister to arrange that review and for the resulting report to be laid before both houses of Parliament, but curiously it is vague about a deadline. Rather than set a date, the report is to be published ‘as soon as reasonably practicable after the review is completed’.

The minister appointed Jared Heath and Dr Paula O’Brien, yet almost five years after these laws were passed the report has still not been tabled. My office has asked the parliamentary library to locate it. There is no record of the report in the tabled documents database or the library catalogue. I am going to call into effect that curious section ‘reasonably practicable’ now, because I have been contacted by a Victorian who has also been pursuing its whereabouts. That person strongly believes the review has been completed and the report finalised with the office of the Minister for Health to facilitate its tabling before Parliament. They have now been stonewalled.

In June 2021 I brought my own pandemic bill to the Parliament. The irony is that my bill was about transparency and accountability. It was the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Greater Transparency and Accountability) Bill 2021, and it was about giving Victorians the right to see the advice and evidence used to justify some of the longest and harshest lockdown restrictions anywhere in the world.

These extraordinary pandemic powers remain on Victoria’s statute books. Victorians therefore have every right to know what the independent review has concluded about their operation and whether changes have been recommended. With an election now less than 100 days away, there should be no question of this report remaining behind closed doors. The action I seek is for the minister to comply with the intent and requirements of the act and table the completed pandemic management review before this Parliament without further delay.