Australia used the pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions detailed in its pandemic plan [9] in an effort to delay entry of the virus into the country, contain the virus to limited areas once it had entered the country, sustain a response when widespread community transmission had been established and to protect the vulnerable [10] -the latter being a new response phase formulated once it was realised that the pandemic was not associated with the high case fatality ratios that had been anticipated [11] . We use Australia's experience to draw attention to issues related to the public health population-based pandemic response. The scope of this perspective does not allow us to consider other categories of response. Now is the time to acknowledge that a number of the strategies used in response to the 2009 pandemic could not control the spread of a novel influenza virus and their place in future pandemic response plans needs to be reconsidered in light of emerging new evidence. We examine four critical cornerstones of Australia's public health population-based response, namely border control, school closure (as an example of social distancing), the use of anti-viral medication and the development and use of a pandemic vaccine. We provide evidence from the pandemic experience in other countries to support our arguments.