Claire Clutterham (Sturt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill 2025. The 2019 COVID-19 pandemic was one of the most significant events to impact Australians in the last century. Some would argue it was the most significant, with lingering physical and mental health impacts still being felt across the country today. We know that most people infected with the virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. However, some will become seriously ill and require medical attention. Older people and those with underlying medical conditions—like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease or cancer—are more likely to develop serious illness. And we know that COVID-19 can be fatal.

At the beginning of the pandemic in Australia, in February 2020, there was much uncertainty as state and federal governments tried to manage what was very much a fluid situation. There is no doubt that this led to confusion, panic, anger and ultimately a mistrust in government as a patchwork of advice, restrictions and recommendations were rolled out in different ways and at different times across the country. We were not prepared for the pandemic, and this lack of planning led to a response that was slow, confusing and characterised by a multitude of different sources of information and advice—often conflicting with each other. There will be another pandemic; of this, we can be certain. The recent COVID-19 response inquiry report identified that pandemics are predicted to occur, on average, every 20 years. It warned that the likelihood of us seeing another significant event is growing—probably within the lifetime of many Australians.

Even without this forecast, it was clear that many lessons needed to be learned from the response to COVID-19 to ensure that Australia is better prepared, with a whole-of-government approach that is transparent, fair, coordinated and, most importantly, proportionate to the risks in a way that allows Australians to live their lives, to run their businesses and to attend educational institutions, workplaces and community events to the absolute fullest whilst protecting those who are vulnerable and protecting and shoring up our health system. That work has started and needs to continue so that the public trusts and has confidence that future responses to pandemics are underpinned by medical science, data and evidence—not polling, opinion, misinformation, conjecture or guesses but science. This is the principle that underpins this important bill. As the COVID-19 response inquiry report articulately put it:

The goal is to combine a balanced, proportionate and adaptable response to the threat with an approach that protects health and the health system and minimises the risk of harm to Australians and the widening of existing health, social and economic inequities.

If there is another pandemic and if the worst possible outcome is realised in that there are genuine and identifiable risks to public health and the health system such that Australians are again asked to implement restrictions in their daily lives, they won't do it unless there is public confidence in the basis for the request. They will not do it and they should not be asked to do it unless there are transparent, scientific and evidence based reasons provided to them from a single source of authority.

The Australian Centre for Disease Control will play an important role in this, in that it will strengthen public health capability, improve our preparedness for future pandemics and safeguard the health and wellbeing of all Australians. In doing this, it must operate in a way that instils public trust and confidence. The Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill 2025 will establish the Australian Centre for Disease Control to begin on 1 January 2026. For the purposes of the framework in the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013, the CDC will be a non-corporate Commonwealth entity. The bill operates by amending or repealing other existing legislation, with the purpose of streamlining accountability and responsibility for public health, and for facilitating a single source of information, guidance and management of risks to public health—including the risks that may be posed by any future pandemics.

Firstly, however, the establishment of the CDC delivers on the Albanese government's election commitment in response to recommendations from the COVID-19 response inquiry report released in October 2024. Within its terms of reference, the COVID-19 response inquiry report sought to determine and lay the building blocks for what Australia can do better next time, by gathering information from people across government, the health sector, community groups and industry who were involved in Australia's COVID-19 pandemic response. The response inquiry report contained detailed recommendations, including a number for immediate action. One such recommendation was finalising the CDC and, in doing so, prioritising certain functions for systemic preparedness so that the CDC can function as a trusted and authoritative source on risk assessment and communication and a national repository of communicable disease intelligence capability and advice.

The recommended priority functions are designed to create a next-generation, world-leading public health surveillance system so that risks to public health can be promptly identified, promptly understood and then proportionately addressed. Linkages to other health authorities operated by our original partners will be a part of this, and the CDC will also build foundations for a national communicable disease data integration system, which will include working with the Department of Health and Aged Care on updated communicable disease plans. Facilitating regular reviews and stress testing Australia's overall pandemic preparedness in partnership with the National Emergency Management Agency is another priority together with establishing a national public communications function and establishing technical advisory committees to engage with subject matter experts and, importantly, to engage with community partners and stakeholders.

The CDC, though, will ultimately become the authoritative source—the single source of truth—of public health advice and information for the public, for government officials for those working in public health. With this goal in mind, the bill establishes the director-general as the head of the CDC and an advisory council to advise the director-general and will transfer some existing statutory public health functions to this director-general. These transferring functions include functions pursuant to the Biosecurity Act 2015 in that the director-general will have the ability to determine listed human diseases, a key decision which determines which human diseases are monitored at Australia's borders and where efforts are focused to prevent their spread domestically and abroad. This measure has its focus in prevention, in ensuring the CDC can identify human diseases posing a risk to Australians in a timely manner. The Biosecurity Act will continue to have application in that the CDC will be obligated to provide advice on human health risks if needed to support the analysis of the biosecurity risk of imported goods for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

The bill also amends the National Health Security Act 2007 in that the CDC will take on responsibility and be accountable for coordinating surveillance data from states and territories for diseases on the national notifiable disease list. In partnership with the Minister for Health, this will create an obligation on the CDC to ensure that the national notifiable disease list is up to date and includes relevant diseases that present genuine and identifiable risks to public health. Australia is required under Article 13 of the International Health Regulations 2005 to develop and maintain capacity to respond promptly and effectively to public health risks and public health emergencies of international concern. Pursuant to Article 4 of those regulations, the National Health Security Act establishes a national focal point to consult with responsible Commonwealth, state or territory bodies, with the World Health Organization and with other countries in relation to public health events of national significance.

With respect to the current arrangements for the National Focal Point, pursuant to section 9 of the National Health Security Act, the role is performed by the secretary of the department of health. This bill transfers this function from the secretary of the department of health to the Director-General of the CDC, which means that the CDC and the director-general will be the independent and central point of contact for significant public health events affecting Australia in and beyond our borders.

A further piece of legislation affected by the transitional provisions is the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Act of 2023, which established the registry of the same name. This registry stores data on occupational respiratory diseases in Australia, which are respiratory diseases caused by hazards in a person's work or workplace. Because a core capability and focus of the Australian CDC will be the more effective and efficient use of available public health data, including data on non-communicable diseases and issues at the interface between human health and environmental health, this bill transfers responsibility for the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry to the CDC. This will result in the CDC having direct management oversight of the registry to help reduce, and improve our understanding of, preventable occupational respiratory disease.

This bill also amends schedule 3 of the Freedom of Information Act 1982. Schedule 3 is a list of acts that contain provisions exempting documents from disclosure if the acts contain secrecy provisions. The CDC must be bound by strong safeguards designed to protect certain information, including the personal information of individual Australians, from inappropriate disclosure. The amendment to the Freedom of Information Act reinforces this protection by making clear that certain information held by the Australian CDC will not be subject to release under freedom-of-information requests or under the director-general's duty to publish public health advice and is designed to find equilibrium between the public interest, the public's right to information and the need to safeguard sensitive information. In this respect, the bill also enables the Australian CDC to collect, use and share public health information. It requires it to be transparent in this operation and to publish the recommendations that it makes to governments, so all Australians can get across the advice.

An evidence based approach to public health is required by this bill. It obliges the CDC to give evidence-based public health advice to federal and state ministers, state and territory government health agencies, international agencies and specialist non-government health organisations. A data driven, evidence based approach is the only way to ensure public confidence and trust in the operation of the CDC—to ensure public confidence and trust in the risk identification conducted by the CDC, in the data it collects, in the data it uses and in the advice it gives with respect to public health management. There is no other acceptable method to do this.

As to whether it is doing this and whether it is working as intended, the bill sets a legislated review of the operation of the act every five years to ensure that the legislation remains contemporary and supports the operation of an efficient and effective modern public health agency. This legislated review will be in addition to the initial review of funding and operations scheduled after two years.

We know we weren't prepared last time. The establishment of the Australian CDC is critical to ensuring that we are prepared next time and can better protect the health and wellbeing of Australians in a fair way that is proportionate to the risks.

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