A sign adorns a security fence near the harbor foreshore ahead of New Year's Eve in Sydney, Australia, Dec 31, 2020. (PHOTO / AP)

CANBERRA - The Australian government has announced an inquiry into the nation's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Mark Butler, the minister for Health and Aged Care, launched the inquiry on Thursday, saying it will cover health and governance responses to COVID-19 from January 2020 onwards, and provide advice on how Australia can prepare for future pandemics.

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The inquiry will be conducted by an independent panel made up of economic and health experts. It will run for 12 months, with a final report to be delivered by Sept 30, 2024. 

A three-member panel, which includes an epidemiologist, public service expert, and economist, will conduct the inquiry, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told a media conference.

It shifted to living with the virus in early 2022 after a majority of the population was vaccinated

"We need to examine what went right, what could be done better with a focus on the future," Albanese said. "Because the health experts and the science tells us that this pandemic may ... not likely to be the last one that occurs."

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Albanese said the inquiry was of national interest, but the opposition coalition which was in power during the height of the pandemic said it did not want it to become a "witch-hunt".

"If we don't learn the lessons of what happened during the course of COVID, good and bad, by every level of government, how do we expect to go into the next pandemic not understanding what had happened in the previous one," opposition leader Peter Dutton told reporters.

A woman with the mask on walks past Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia, July 6, 2022. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

Australia closed its international borders and locked down cities among other pandemic restrictions that helped keep infections and deaths far below levels in other comparable developed economies such as the United States and Britain.

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It shifted to living with the virus in early 2022 after a majority of the population was vaccinated.