Retiring health department secretary Brendan Murphy delivers valedictory

But he acknowledged that the "proportionality of the response at each stage is likely to be a major issue for any future inquiry" and stated there were restrictions put in place to contain the pandemic that were "worthy of review".

Professor Murphy, who steered nation's COVID-19 response, in April announced he will be retiring from the role as health department secretary. He stepped into the role in mid-2020 after years of serving as chief medical officer, a job he took up in 2016.

Speaking at an Institute of Public Administration Australia event on Friday, Professor Murphy also reflected on his broader influence on the public service.

"In leadership roles, I'm inherently attracted to the challenge of building a strong and open and exciting organisational culture where people have a sense of purpose and want to come to work, or least come to work from home," he said.

He said during his time at the department he concentrated "more on my local departmental culture, rather than the broader APS reform agenda".

"Having built, I think, now a strong culture in the department, my successor may say it's timely to rebalance this," he said.

"It's certainly true that collaboration across the APS is now very strong. It was definitely enhanced by the necessities of the pandemic."

Recounting moments that stood out during the pandemic, Professor Murphy pointed to January of 2020 "when we realised that the virus in Wuhan readily transmitted from human to human and was causing severe illness".

"A pandemic was then inevitable and we called it early, much earlier than the WHO, knowing that there was little hope of containment," he said.

Professor Murphy said there has "been a bit of narrative recently" that Australia should have followed Sweden's example in not introducing public health and social restrictions in the early stages of the pandemic.

But he said those measures saved lives.

"There are people who believe we did go too hard with public health and social measures. There are also people who even today say we should be doing much more, walking around with personal HEPA filters and wearing masks," he said.

"The truth as always, is somewhere in the middle. But the proportionality of the response at each stage is likely to be a major issue for any future inquiry."

Speaking on international border restrictions and hotel quarantine, he said the measures were "in my view, crucial in preventing major outbreaks in 2020", as were internal border restrictions to prevent people leaving Victoria during the large-scale outbreak in 2020.

"Many of the other instances of state border closures are worthy of review of their proportionality and in the effectiveness," he said.

Professor Murphy also defended former prime minister Scott Morrison's leadership during the pandemic.

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"I do think there has been much unfair post-facto public commentary about the leadership of former prime minister [Scott] Morrison, whom I found to be an effective and respectful leader at a time when such leadership was required," Professor Murphy said.

"None of us were perfect, but I genuinely enjoyed working with him and I was particularly struck how in the early stages of the pandemic, he achieved a solidarity, a national sense of purpose in national cabinet that hopefully will endure."

Mr Morrison was widely praised for Australia's response in the early stages of the pandemic but later came under fire for a slow vaccine rollout, the COVID death toll in aged care, and management of Omicron. It also later emerged that he secretly appointed himself to five portfolios, including health, in 2020 and 2021.

Speaking on broader health reforms, Professor Murphy said he was "disappointed" that the implementation of his Medical Workforce Strategy had been delayed by COVID. The strategy looks to address issues like unequal access to health services through improved planning for the future medical workforce.

"I'll be watching very closely from the sidelines in the hope that all the players, governments, hospitals, colleges and universities play their part in driving these reforms," he said.

Professor Murphy will retire on July 6.

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