Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill 2025 and the Australian Centre for Disease Control (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025. The establishment of an Australian CDC was a key recommendation out of the Commonwealth government COVID-19 response inquiry report. It's not a new idea. Medical experts and peak bodies in Australia have been calling for a CDC for years. All other OECD nations have a CDC or equivalent health authority, and I am glad to see this legislation being introduced and debated.

The Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill seeks to do three things: (1) establish an Australian Centre for Disease Control, known as the CDC; (2) create a Director-General of the CDC and an advisory council to advise the federal and state governments, health peak bodies and the Australian public on public health matters; and (3) introduce a new framework for the transparency of public health advice and data sharing for public health use. The consequential amendments and transitional provisions bill provides for some powers that already exist within relevant government agencies to transfer to the Director-General of the CDC.

I welcome this legislation and the establishment of an Australian CDC. Timely, accurate, coordinated public health advice is good for our country. Before being elected as the member for Indi, I worked clinically as a nurse and a midwife and I had a masters in public health and worked as a regional health researcher. I've dedicated more than half of my life to health care, and I truly care about this bill. As a former health researcher, I'm pleased to see the CDC legislation supporting the improvement of a nationally coordinated approach to health data. National collaboration and sharing of high-quality data across states and territories improve the accuracy of our understanding of the issues impacting our health. It helps us to identify population-level trends and predict and respond to public health issues.

There are positive transparency measures included in this bill. I support the requirements for the Director-General of the CDC to publish advice and recommendations given to the government within 30 days of that advice being provided. This is good. This comes with some important exceptions where that advice may identify particular people or groups of people, to protect their privacy, and this is good.

This is why I support the government's intention to establish a CDC. As a trusted source of public health expertise and advice, the CDC will be responsible for overseeing coordinated responses to communicable and non-communicable diseases. This is a valuable—a critical—resource for our country. The importance of a coordinated response to infectious diseases was made abundantly clear during the COVID-19 pandemic. Communities in my electorate—border communities in particular—suffered from states differentiating their responses. Albury-Wodonga, a community divided by the Murray River, acts as one community. People living on the border regularly cross it for school, for work, to attend medical appointments or to do their groceries. Indeed, we share a hospital across the border. Yet, when COVID hit and the New South Wales and Victorian borders closed, the Albury-Wodonga community was literally split in two. Differing public health responses from two state governments, including closing borders at different times, caused significant strain on my border community, a community I love and represent. A centralised response to infectious diseases and pandemics, coordinated by the CDC, will be a positive improvement for our healthcare landscape.

The minister has said that, in its initial years, the CDC's priorities will focus on communicable diseases and pandemic preparedness. I understand that, after two years, the minister hopes for an independent review of the CDC's funding and operation. Following this review, the intention is to progressively expand its areas of remit into areas such as chronic conditions and the health impacts of climate change. However, I'm concerned that this two-year review is not legislated, nor is the direction for the CDC to expand into all areas of public health, as defined within the legislation.

I recognise that the intention of the phased expansion of the CDCs operations is to enable the CDC to initially focus on pandemic preparedness. Let me be clear: I want the CDC to have every success at its establishment. However, I am deeply troubled by the delay in the CDC's direction to understand and respond to preventive health, to chronic disease and to environmental health. This is critical. Regional Australia has unique health needs. There is greater prevalence of many diseases and illnesses in rural Australia. Indeed, as you travel further from major cities, the burden of non-communicable disease increases for conditions like coronary heart disease, COPD, lung cancer, stroke and type 2 diabetes. In rural Australia we have poorer access to health services in our communities and lower-than-average incomes to pay for expensive healthcare treatments. And, tragically, on average rural Australians die younger than our city counterparts.

Preventive health is within the scope of the CDC. It is critical to the CDC. And it's a mistake to be delaying the CDC's oversight over preventive health measures. It's a mistake that will disproportionately impact negatively upon rural communities. It's a mistake that we can't afford to make. We mustn't delay on this. The government needs to get cracking on preventive health. It's an absolute priority for when the CDC is set up.

There are parts of this legislation, particularly around the CDC governance and review process, that also concern me. We've seen in the United States only recently the consequences of politicising health care and the appointment of the director-general of their CDC. At a time when, in the United States, the CDC is being gutted and their president is issuing absurd and dangerous misinformation—talking about the use of paracetamol while pregnant—we need to guard against any such things ever happening in our country. We should not be taking health advice from the man who suggested that bleach is a legitimate treatment for COVID. This is a big warning sign. Paracetamol is an important and effective drug for reducing fever. A gold-standard Swedish study of more than two million children found that acetaminophen use in pregnancy is not associated with children's risk of autism, ADHD or intellectual disability. What the United States president is saying is truly absurd.

Why do I talk about this? I talk about this because it perfectly exemplifies why it is essential that our health information comes from trusted sources that understand science and research, that apply science and research, and that can communicate this information accurately and accessibly. It further worries me that former US CDC director-general Susan Monarez has testified in front of a Senate health committee alleging that she was fired after just 29 days in the job for refusing to pre-approve recommendations on vaccines without being given the opportunity to assess the scientific evidence.

We are seeing increasing misinformation, anti-science rhetoric and the politicisation of health internationally. So it is more important now than ever that we establish a robust CDC with an independent director-general to provide evidence based health advice. This bill has only one requirement for the appointment of the director-general of the CDC, and that is that the minister is satisfied that the person has appropriate expertise, qualifications or experience. Frankly, this is not good enough. We need to legislate not just for today but for the future. We need to bomb-proof this appointment to the CDC to absolutely be certain of independence.

So, I'll be supporting amendments to strengthen the independence of the appointment of the director-general. It's essential that our CDC legislation protects against vested political interests, appointing individuals to the director-general position who have political biases. The bill before us is an opportunity to get this right—and we must get it right.

I remain unconvinced about the integrity and independence of the statutory review process in the legislation as it currently stands. The legislation requires a review of the CDC every five years. However, the requirements for this review really must be strengthened. Any review of the operations and funding of the CDC must be independent, conducted by experts with relevant expertise, to understand the critical nature of the CDC. To that end, I'll be moving amendments to establish best practice for the integrity of the review process. My amendments seek to ensure the independence of the review of the CDC.

My amendments would require that three individuals be appointed by the minister to the review panel undertaking the statutory review. These individuals must have relevant related experience to properly understand the function of the CDC. To ensure the review's impartiality, they must not be on the CDC advisory council and they must not be current employees of the Commonwealth Public Service or current or former members of the Commonwealth parliament. My amendments would also improve the timeliness and transparency of the review process, requiring the government's response to the review be tabled in the parliament for all to see. These amendments will ensure a robust review process, and I urge the government to back them. I value engagement with the minister on these good-faith amendments.

It's important that Australia has an independent CDC that provides independent, trustworthy advice to the government, key health bodies and the Australian people about our most precious of resources: our health. We must have confidence in the CDC's independence and the review process to ensure this happens. We need to bake this in right now. The establishment of an Australian CDC is an important step forward in our public health architecture, and I truly welcome the establishment of the CDC, but I do so knowing that good-faith amendments are here on the table for the minister to improve the integrity of the statutory review process, because they are very much needed. A robust and transparent CDC will support public health prevention and response well into the future. It's critical that we get this right from the very beginning.

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