Opinion piece | Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay
Earlier this month the Australian Human Rights Commission released Collateral Damage: What the untold stories from the COVID-19 pandemic reveal about human rights in Australia.
In the five years since COVID-19 reached Australia, this report is the first to assess the country's pandemic response through a human rights lens. It is centred on the stories of more than 5,000 Australians, following a national survey, community consultations and personal stories being shared directly with the AHRC.
The key finding is that the pandemic response measures in Australia did not adequately consider or protect people's human rights. Australia's comparative 'success' in responding to the pandemic - when viewed from the perspective of global mortality rates or economic performance - must not overshadow the human cost of that response. Thousands of Australians told us that they felt like they were collateral damage, overlooked in the country's scramble to stamp out COVID-19.
These overall findings did not come as a surprise. Since the report was published, some have suggested that it is 'too little, too late' - that somehow the Australian Human Rights Commission has only just now realised that human rights were at risk during the pandemic, and that we failed to take any action on these issues throughout the past five years.
From the outset, it's important to recognise that while the AHRC has broad functions and powers, they are limited in important ways. We do not have the power to prosecute or punish, and do not have the ability to directly intervene to compel governments to do anything. In addition, our focus as a national institution primarily relates to the Federal Government, with our mandate being limited in key respects when it comes to the actions of State governments. Each of these limitations was significant in terms of our role during the pandemic and its aftermath.
People calling for the AHRC to prosecute people, intervene directly to force the Australian government to do certain things, or demand that State governments now provide compensation or apologise, are asking us to step beyond our legislated mandate. Overreach by government agencies - including by independent statutory bodies such as the AHRC - should be resisted, even if being done to achieve outcomes that you might personally support.
This is why the Collateral Damage report takes the approach that it does, seeking to highlight the individual human stories, outline the relevant human rights principles, and focus on what can be done in the future to ensure that this never happens again. Our continuing work to develop an emergency response framework that embeds human rights into future emergency decision-making sits squarely within our mandated functions and does not either duplicate inquiries already undertaken or encroach on functions that would more appropriately be designated to a future Royal Commission.
Despite these constraints, the Commission has made a range of contributions to the debate over COVID responses both during and after the pandemic.
When I became the Human Rights Commissioner in late November 2021, my very first public statement in this role focused on the impact of the pandemic response measures on human rights, expressing my concern about Australians being required to live with some of the most restrictive response measures in the world. Since then, I have consistently spoken publicly about the impact of measures such as border closures and quarantine restrictions, vaccine mandates, and extended states of emergency, as well providing submissions and evidence before a range of inquiries relating to aspects of the pandemic response. I have also repeatedly called for a Royal Commission as the only way to comprehensively examine every aspect of Australia's pandemic response, including the actions of all levels of government.
The AHRC has also been actively engaged in other ways, particularly through our role in investigating and conciliating complaints about discrimination and human rights breaches. As of February 2025, the Commission had received 14,341 enquiries and 3,135 complaints relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, being the most notable single issue to impact on complaint numbers in the AHRC's history. As Australia's National Human Rights Institution, the AHRC has played a substantial role in highlighting and responding to human rights issues relating to the pandemic.
Finally, the Collateral Damage report itself did not simply spring from nowhere. Shortly after I commenced as the Human Rights Commissioner the then-Opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, promised 'a royal commission or some other inquiry into the nation's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic'. When it became clear that the promised Royal Commission would not be established, the Commission initiated its own project to examine the human rights impacts of the pandemic, and to then look at emergency responses more broadly. The report released on the fifth anniversary of the global declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic is the culmination of the first phase of this work.
It is a report that does not simply restate the obvious. While it was clear early on that there was a substantial human cost attached to response measures, this is the first report that examines what happened during the pandemic specifically from a human rights perspective and puts stories from everyday Australians at its heart. Thousands of Australians from all walks of life spoke to us, and they said time and again that this was the first opportunity they had been given to properly tell their story. Giving a voice to these Australians is not just repeating what we already know. Each of these stories matters and needs to be heard so that we can clearly understand the many different ways that Australians were impacted during this extraordinary period.
This helps to explain what the report is, and also what it is not. The report is not designed to cast blame, condemn individuals or institutions, or make judgments outside of our remit. The stories and issues discussed were chosen because they represented the breadth of experiences disclosed to us. It is a reflection through a human rights lens of the human impacts.
One clear example of this are the sections dealing with vaccinations in the report. As a human rights body - and recognising that we are not medical experts - we have focused on the human impact of vaccine mandates and the human rights principles that should guide decision makers when making decisions in this area.
There has also been interest and commentary about what our survey results have said on issues such as vaccine mandates, with 57% of Australians agreeing with the statement that the COVID-19 vaccine should be mandatory for all except those with medical exemptions. Does this mean that vaccine mandates were unproblematic? Of course not. Questions about human rights should never be determined solely on the basis of majority opinion.
Rather, the survey results are useful for different reasons. Understanding how Australians feel about these issues is critical to ensuring that future emergency responses are not only sound in theory, but also effective in practice. It also highlights the vastly different views that Australians hold on these key issues, and the practical need to reach across that divide if we want to ensure that future emergency responses have a stronger focus on protecting human rights.
To this end, constructive conversation will always be more effective than abuse and invective. Open conversations about difficult topics are needed now more than ever.
There are many Australians who remain hurt, frustrated and angry by what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not everybody will agree with everything that is in this report, but dismissing it as 'too little, too late' not only fails to acknowledge the foundations on which it is built but also risks us repeating the same mistakes again when we face the next emergency.
We need to chart a better path for the future. The first step in doing so is to reflect on the lessons that we can learn from the COVID-19 pandemic.
