Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport, I present the committee's report entitled Sick and tired: casting a long shadow—inquiry into long COVID and repeated COVID infections, together with minutes of proceedings.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—This report was the culmination of a series of really long and hard work by the committee members and the secretariat. I would like to commend all the committee members: my deputy chair, Melissa McIntosh, the member for Lindsay; Dr Michelle Ananda-Rajah, the member for Higgins; Mark Coulton, the member for Parkes; Peta Murphy, the member for Dunkley; Gordon Reid, the member for Robertson; Monique Ryan, the member for Kooyong; Anne Stanley, the member for Werriwa; and Jenny Ware, the member for Hughes. I'd like to also commend the committee secretariat: Clare Anderson, Kate Portus, Kate Morris, Cassie Davis and Cathy Rouland. Without their enormous professionalism, diligence, experience and unfailing goodwill and good humour, this inquiry would not have been achievable.

The report itself was comprehensive, and it will set a framework for the government's ability to now deal with long COVID, which is a serious issue not just for our health system but economically, in terms of its effect on our productivity. There has been much media regarding this report since it was first published. I'm very pleased to thank the Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mark Butler, who was the initiator of the inquiry, for the $50 million package for research regarding long COVID, which will be very important in planning how we deal with the many twists and turns of this pandemic in the future—in terms of long COVID in particular.

I am happy with all the work done by the committee members and the secretariat. We have achieved much already in terms of knowledge and understanding of long COVID, but there is much to be done. We don't know what we don't know, and much will be discovered, I'm sure, over the ensuing years. What I do know is that long COVID is having an effect on our population. It is in particular affecting women more than men. It is affecting people in the most productive years of their lives—often those who have employment, have families and have commitments in our society in general.

I commend the report to the House. I'd like to give whatever further time I have to the deputy chair and others who may want to speak on the report.

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