The COVIDsafe app failed, but it's OK to fail: Glyn Davis

Professor Glyn Davis endorsed the highly critical Fault Lines independent report into Australia's COVID-19 response during his end of year address to the Australian Public Service.

"The goal is not perfection, but building on what we learned," the head of the Prime Minister' department told senior officials in Canberra on Thursday as he reflected the year that included war in Ukraine, new COVID strains, and a continuous cycle of devastating national disasters.

COVID was still a national crisis needing the careful attention and deep expertise of Commonwealth, state and territory officials to deal with new variants and planning against further outbreaks, he said.

The independent review, led by former PM&C head Peter Shergold, would help shape a longer-term pandemic strategy.

"As long as the virus threatens there is more to study, practices to change, better preparations to begin," Professor Davis said.

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Professor Davis gave a nod to the costly misadventures that delivered no direct public value and saved no lives, but served as a lesson.

"Even the failures - remember the COVIDsafe app? - helped the public sector keep learning," he said.

The Shergold-led review of Australia's pandemic response was especially critical of lockdowns that appeared excessive and politically driven, saying they hurt more than helped the most vulnerable.

Both Anthony Albanese and opposition leader Peter Dutton said the review was a worthwhile exercise, but premiers who were in charge of those lockdowns were dismissive. Queensland's Annastacia Palaszczuk rejected the review's core findings and Victoria's Daniel Andrews said it was "written by a bunch of academics and that's fine, that's their job".

Both politicians and public servants stood up at media conferences during the pandemic, Professor Davis noted, which reassured the public with the two skills needed in a crisis - leadership, offered by the elected politicians, and deep expertise and follow-through, offered by the public service. Neither was sufficient without the other.

He thanked the public servants who helped deliver new policies and new forms of service delivery with "impressive speed" during the pandemic in what was an example of all hands on deck. It tested the stewardship of the APS like no other challenge in the working lives of those in the service.

Telehealth, digital vaccine certificates, and huge vaccination centres and programs were "genuine innovation" achieved through collaboration with state and territory governments, he said.

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"Through 2022 the APS demonstrated it can deploy skilled hands in the right places at the right times," Professor Davis said.

Professor Davis warned that like COVID, the next storm to confound and test Australia's policymakers was likely to arrive unbidden and unwelcome. But it was every public servant's shared duty to plan, work together, apply what was learned and tame the next storm.

"As public servants we work with elected officials as stewards of this vessel. Our shared duty is to keep the ship of state seaworthy for this moment, and for those who follow," he said.

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