For reasons I don't understand the current Australian Federal Government doesn't want to do a royal commission, which is the main mechanism used here to do this

For reasons I don't understand the current Australian Federal Government doesn't want to do a royal commission, which is the main mechanism used here to do this kind of enquiry with an ability to compel participation and take evidence under oath (the so-called coercive powers which are of course terrible P.R.) I think there's a bit of "be careful what you wish for" in this because although the prior federal government was the other side, not all the state level governments were, and the states aren't keen, and so I suspect pretty much everyone in a position of power and authority during the period doesn't want the bone-pointing. I get the desire not to do blame-setting but I think shining a light on preparedness, decision making and outcome would be net-beneficial. Our border closure and stay-home policy is widely believed to have saved lives. Our vaccine and PPE acquisition policy was a complete omishambles, but by the time the government went to de-facto "let it rip" we had achieved pretty good vaccine coverage. Not good enough but the other side of this was the undoubted economic and often health related issues in isolation at scale. People with cancer, and other normally treatable diseases died. Kids have significant impairment to their education. We totally fucked up Old people care and the amount of avoidable deaths in aged care residencies is a scandal. We had people with delegated authority to do things like force quarantine on ships, managing to completely fail to use their delegated powers when a cruise ship of infected people arrived. There are very odd people who want to pursue high court action over constitutional matters regarding inter-state trade and freedom of movement. Not that there isn't a case to be made, but that the people concerned come from a particular sector of the community: Rich, litigious and conspiracy ridden. We had our fair share of freedom warriors wanting widespread horse-worming tablet issuance. News Ltd is very proud of an investigative journalist called Sharri Markson who has been running hot with Chyna-Virus theories. I think it's more likely we'll get accusative enquiries into other economies like that, than a proper investigation of how our governance structures stood up to this one. The reason I want a royal commission, is because I am sure there will be another pandemic within my lifetime. You would think that having an enquiry would help formulate better policy for round two?