Rita Panahi:
Let’s bring in the panel. Joining me now is IPA Chief Economist Adam Creighton and Sky News contributor, Caroline Di Russo. Adam, do we need a reckoning locally, at least some sort of accountability and transparency about how these decisions were made? Were they influenced by politicians and how the bureaucrats came to say things like, let’s ban fishing?
Adam Creighton:
Yeah, look, I think we certainly do. Indeed, the contrast is extraordinary. The health bureaucrats here were made governors of states and given national awards. They were not subject to these grillings. So the contrast with the US is just extraordinary. I mean, there’s been a royal commission called obviously in Victoria for the construction sector, but I still think we really need one for the COVID response. I would love to see that. It’s probably not going to happen because it’s like it never happened in Australia. No one really talks about it except us on this show, which is credible, but it’s like it never happened.
Rita Panahi:
Yes. Well, because we were one of the few programmes that took a stand against that lunacy.
Adam Creighton:
Exactly.
Rita Panahi:
The rest of the media was very much on board pushing for more restrictions, more lockdowns, greater measures. And anyone who actually made any noise against it, Adam, as you would remember at the time.
Adam Creighton:
You did and I did. I know. Look, can I just say the thing from the diaries that really annoys me that came out was that he wrote in his diary in February 2020 that the infection fatality rate was about 0.2% to 0.3%. And then four weeks later, he said to Congress it was 3%, which caused global panic.
Rita Panahi:
10 times more.
Adam Creighton:
Global panic. That to me is just inexcusable and should be criminal.
Rita Panahi:
Everything in that diary, a lot of attention has been on the fame obsession he had about the front pages and the adulation he was getting from celebrities and the media. But what’s been lost is the deliberate lies. The fatality rate obviously, but also the origins of the virus. He knew from the start this was a lab leak. Caroline, I’m going to take a deep dive into what Fauci said or didn’t say later in the show. But locally, if we don’t examine what happened, aren’t we at risk of repeating the same mistakes when the next pandemic comes along?
Caroline Di Russo:
Well, of course we are, but we’re also still suffering, I think, some of the consequences of some of the decisions and some of the lack of directness and openness from the time. I mean, we’re even seeing falling childhood vaccination rates here in Australia. And you can’t tell me that that doesn’t have something to do with this lack of or loss of trust that occurred over that period of time. And I wouldn’t have expected them at the time to necessarily have all the answers. Say you don’t have all the answers, but be honest about the things that you do know. Because this is where you end up with this issue, Rita, of what is the truth? What isn’t the truth? What are deliberate lies? What’s misinformation? And what ends up becoming conspiracy theory? And the problem is when you have such an enveloping issue like we had with COVID at the time, they all end up together and it’s very difficult to work out which is which.
And going forward, unless we examine what exactly happened and what people knew when they knew it and what they did wrong and what they didn’t do right, or what they did right and what they didn’t do right, well then how are we meant to plan for next time? How are we going to be able to mitigate those risks? Because you’ll remember it, Rita, and we were all having these conversations. The single issue was COVID. No one was ever talking about the economic consequences or the shadow pandemic of domestic violence or kids not being educated and all of those things which we are now seeing-
Rita Panahi:
Some of us were Caroline.
Caroline Di Russo:
… the consequences of. Well, we were, we were. But unfortunately, you end up with a tale of consequences and it’s damaging.
Rita Panahi:
Yeah. And so much of what we are experiencing right now, Adam, so much of the economic woes-
Adam Creighton:
Inflation.
Rita Panahi:
… is because of the decisions that were made then. And it wasn’t just leftist governments. We had a coalition government in power here and they were printing money and giving away money-
Adam Creighton:
Exactly.
Rita Panahi:
… like there was no tomorrow. And we are feeling the effects today.
Adam Creighton:
No, that’s right. It was hundreds of billions of dollars and it is still working its way through.
Rita Panahi:
It was obvious. It was obvious at the time.
Adam Creighton:
I said so.
Rita Panahi:
You can’t just print money. You can’t just give everyone these massive handouts for staying at home without having grave consequences following. And it seemed like the entire media, academic, expert class closed their eyes to this. They just pretended this was, oh, nothing bad will come of this.
Adam Creighton:
And of course, very few of them now say that they supported it.
Rita Panahi:
Of course.
Adam Creighton:
It’s very quiet.
Rita Panahi:
It’s all been memory hole. All being memory hole. And one of those groups that were impacted were police forces across the country. Unvaccinated police officers in New South Wales who were sacked during the pandemic are being welcomed back now, Caroline. The New South Wales Police Force put out a statement yesterday saying it has updated its COVID-19 vaccination policy requirement for mandatory to recommended. This is so overdue. We’re in 2026, mid-2026, and they finally have done this.
Caroline Di Russo:
What a disgrace. And this should have happened a long, long time ago. And again, when we didn’t know the way the virus behaved or we didn’t know exactly how effective a vaccination is going to be, then fine, maybe you have protocols that are a bit more stringent or a bit more cautious, but we’re so far down the road. And quite frankly, Rita, if someone’s breaking into my house and my life is threatened, I don’t care if the police officer’s been vaccinated or not. I just want someone to come to my rescue. And I just feel like these sorts of things was part of that general heavy-handedness of the time and apparently accepted or tolerated by a vast majority of people. Again, not the three people who are sitting on tele today. But you do wonder what impact or what adverse impacts did that have on policing at the time because they were prioritising the thing that actually wasn’t the principal issue, which is community safety, God forbid.
Rita Panahi:
And it’s not just police officers, it was firefighters. It was all sorts of stuff.
Caroline Di Russo:
And those, everyone. 100%.
Rita Panahi:
And not just public sector workers, but the private sector. There were so many workplaces where if you didn’t have your vaccine card or the two vaccination minimum for COVID, you couldn’t work. You couldn’t enter your workplace.
Adam Creighton:
And just goes to show you five years on from when it was pretty clear that it did not stop transmission at all. Indeed, there are some studies out there that said it actually increased transmission. These mandates have still existed, just unbelievable. Just to show the stubbornness of governments and bureaucracies, they do not like admitting fault. But these people should be compensated if they were stood down and they should be financially [inaudible 00:07:07].
Rita Panahi:
Absolutely. And you know what? As a taxpayer, this is one bit of a compensation. I do not mind taking place, backdating the pay of every single worker, every single police officer who was let go because they didn’t have a vaccine pass. I think it’s absolutely appalling the way they were treated. Now let’s move on to some other issues. Hard left activist and commentator Hannah Ferguson has announced plans to challenge Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in his Marrickville seat. Have a listen.
Hannah Ferguson:
More people need to be standing up, putting their head above the parapet and challenging people like the Prime Minister. At the end of the day, he’s an elected local representative and I believe he’s failing the area and I want to change that.
Rita Panahi:
Adam, imagine being so hard left that Anthony Albanese from Labor’s socialist left faction isn’t left enough for you, that you feel the need to take a stand and run in his own seat.
Adam Creighton:
Look, that’s true. And it could be a problem for the prime minister too, because it is a very left-wing seat. And in these very uncertain times with One Nation and preferences all over the place, you just don’t know what her 5% to 10% primary, let’s say, is going to get and where it’s going to go and what that means for him. I mean, he’d be very angry about this. I do notice the last person that stood there I think was bashed by the police accidentally. So let’s hope that doesn’t happen to this new candidate, of course. But he’d be very worried about the outcome there.
Rita Panahi:
Well, he would be. And Caroline, you might be seeing some of those One Nation votes because even a seat like that would have One Nation votes. Going to someone who’s even more left than he is because it’s not going to Labour or the Greens. And they may not know the politics of this woman who rationalised and seemed to justify Charlie Kirk’s brutal murder. She wrote at the time, “Is violence sometimes necessary?” And answered that with, “Yes.” This is the sort of character who’s going to be running in that seat.
Caroline Di Russo:
They were absolutely revolting comments. But the one thing that I don’t think we should necessarily assume that Albo will be going around next election. It depends, let’s see how things play out over the next couple of years. And to be honest, in a seat like his and in a seat like Sydney held by Tanya Plibersek, once those very long-term and entrenched MPs do retire, those seats will almost certainly go Greens or a Greens-aligned independent. So you might be talking about her 10% primary, but you never know once you take out a personal vote of someone like Albo or someone like Tanya Plibersek. Depending how those preferences go, those sorts of people are actually, don’t be surprised if that seat does go further to the left. It’d be very interesting to see, that’s for sure.
Rita Panahi:
Now the Carroll government, it feels weird saying that, but yes, we have a Carroll government here in Victoria. They’ll be undertaking a major review of the suburban rail loop. The Herald Sun understands that radical options are likely to be assessed as part of the review, including whether tunnelling deals already signed could be repurposed. That’s a good word, isn’t it? The 26 kilometre first stage of the loop was estimated to cost 30 to 34 and a half billion dollars in 2021. The entire 90 kilometre project is forecast to cost more than $200 billion and run over 50 years. Adam, this is one hot, costly mess for Labour, for the Victorian population, and possibly for voters around the country because Labour federally may have to step in and help here.
Adam Creighton:
Yeah, certainly that’s right. It’s very good news that it might be on the chopping block. This really is a shockingly bad project, probably even more costly than Snowy 2.0, I would say, in terms of waste.
Rita Panahi:
And possibly stupider.
Adam Creighton:
Yeah. And the state just can’t afford it. I mean, just can’t afford it. There’s $230 billion of debt. It’s rising. I’ve done calculations that just in a few years, one quarter of the state’s tax revenue will just be serving interest, right?
Rita Panahi:
Fantastic.
Adam Creighton:
And also the other point I think that must be made is these projects are based on massive population growth forecasts, which are just not going to happen because of the rise of One Nation. So all those forecasts, they’re just not viable anymore. And all these projects, they just don’t have the number of people that are needed to make them worthwhile.
Rita Panahi:
It is a mess in Victoria. Caroline Di Russo, be grateful you’re not here. Adam Creighton, you’re a new Victorian. Welcome.
Adam Creighton:
I’m here. Thank you.
Rita Panahi:
Welcome. Thank you for your time.
Adam Creighton:
Thanks, Rita.
This transcript with Adam Creighton talking on The Rita Panahi News24 from 30 July 2026 has been edited for clarity.
