Inside national cabinet’s early COVID-19 decisions

Former South Australian senator-come “transparency warrior” Rex Patrick scored a significant win in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal when it rejected confidentiality claims for national cabinet decisions. It ruled confidentiality protections only applied to the actual cabinet.

The source documents make fascinating reading for anyone interested in the early days of the pandemic. They reveal just how astonishingly quickly unheard-of civil controls were implemented, amid horrific death counts firstly in Italy and then Western Europe and the US.