Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will be speaking about the Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill 2025. It is clear that, through this bill, we will be fixing something that was shambolic before we came to government. The Albanese government are delivering on our commitment to the Australian people to deliver a transparent, trusted and independent national centre for disease control.

Before we came to government, Australia was the only OECD country without a CDC equivalent. As the COVID-19 response inquiry highlighted, Australia wasn't prepared for a pandemic. Because of the lack of planning, Australia's pandemic response to COVID was slow, confused and lacked authority. The COVID-19 inquiry called for an Australian CDC, and that is exactly what the Albanese government is delivering. The Australian CDC will strengthen public health capability, improve our preparedness for future pandemics and safeguard the health and wellbeing of all Australians. The Australian CDC will provide evidence based public health advice to governments, state and territory government health agencies, international agencies such as the WHO and specialist non-government health organisations. It will be an authoritative source of public health advice and information for the public and for government officials working in public health. Importantly, it will support the better use of data and provide greater transparency of advice provided to governments.

This bill will establish the Australian CDC, to commence operations on 1 January 2026—next year—as an independent Commonwealth statutory agency. The establishment of the Australian CDC will ensure we are prepared and learn from the hard lessons of the pandemic to better protect the health and wellbeing of Australians. This bill will establish the Australian CDC in legislation to deliver its functions related to a broad range of public health matters, including preventing communicable disease spread, providing independent advice on public health risks, strengthening data and analytics capability and building its role as a trusted adviser to all governments on public health risks and threats.

The Australian CDC functions are expected to expand in the future and will respond to emerging public health risks. The Australian CDC will bring together critical information and experts to protect Australia from diseases and other threats to public health. It will provide high-quality analysis and advice on public health risks to governments and the Australian community—promoting and coordinating action to prepare for and respond to the risks. The Australian CDC will be led by a director-general and, subject to the passage of this legislation, will be operational from early next year.

Australia's CDC advice will be based on independent assessment of available evidence. The D-G will perform its functions at an arm's length from the government and is not subject to direction from ministers or government departments. Under this legislation all collection and use of personal information by the Australian CDC would need to comply with the Privacy Act 1988 as is appropriate. Data would be handled under strict safeguards—including limits on collection and sharing and de-identification wherever possible. The COVID-19 inquiry highlighted that Australia wasn't prepared for a pandemic and called for an independent CDC. That is exactly what our government is delivering by establishing a transparent, trusted and independent centre for disease control.

As the COVID-19 inquiry reported, Australia went into the COVID pandemic with no playbook for a pandemic, limited readiness of the National Medical Stockpile and badly stretched, aged and healthcare systems. The COVID-19 report noted:

The pandemic pushed our people, emergency response structures and communities to the limit and required rapid decision-making in times of great uncertainty.

Some critical gaps and lessons revealed in the health response to the pandemic can be addressed by rapidly progressing and funding the establishment of a new national authority dedicated to prevention and control.

The COVID-19 inquiry report, with a permanent Australian Centre for Disease Control, CDC—in future means that we would have a centre of expertise, an authoritative voice on disease prevention and control for Australia and evidence support for decision-makers in the Australian government and jurisdictions. We would have the technical expertise—in-house and through partnerships with research and academic organisations—to support a nationally coordinated approach to the collection, analysis and synthesis of real-time evidence. We would have rapid risk assessment of pandemic threat, disease hotspots and at-risk segments of the community. We would have the evidence to support decisions on the introduction, escalation and de-escalation of public health measures through the oversight and coordination of multi-way data sharing across jurisdictions and with Australian government and other organisations as appropriate.

A permanent Australian CDC means we would have rapid linkage of datasets. We would have evidence of population and health system-level impacts of the disease—acute and longer term sequelae—and of the performance of public health interventions to inform decisions on the extent and duration of interventions and the transition out of the pandemic response. We would also have an expanded One Health approach that considers the intersection between plant, animal and human biosecurity—linking departments, agencies and expertise to combat complex disease threats, including avian influenza. There would be a key contact point for international public health authorities for efficient intelligence sharing on emergency threats in health crises.

There would be an increased trust in public health interventions through the timely sharing and translation of evidence on effectiveness as part of a broader public health communications strategy on risk and the balancing of risks in a public health emergency. There would also be a coordinated investment in pandemic and public health leadership and training, advice to government on urgent research priority areas to provide the real-time evidence required in public health operational responses across jurisdictions and health risk assessments and scenario projections that support policy decisions. There would be living pandemic-specific guidelines adapted for the various health professions, workplaces and high-risk settings, including aged care and disability service providers and other high risk or otherwise impacted settings.

Further, the COVID-19 inquiry said that expeditiously establishing a fully operational CDC would provide Australia with a lasting legacy of the lessons learned about the central role that evidence plays in supporting a nationally cohesive and proportionate response and in supporting population trust in and engagement with those pandemic responses. Most importantly, perhaps, it will ensure oversight of national preparedness that will put us in a safer and more resilient place ahead of the next pandemic.

The COVID-19 inquiry recommended that the CDC be underpinned by the founding principles of multiway cooperative relationships with the states and territories as well as non-government organisations; complementing and enhancing existing health and emergency governance architecture; transparency, trust and independence—as I've already covered—which is insured with this CDC; and certainty of funding for investment in world-leading data sharing and surveillance systems. I acknowledge the outstanding and ongoing work of the department of health and ageing in bringing this CDC to fruition.

I commend this bill and, in closing, want to acknowledge all those health professionals, aged-care professionals, public health professionals and everyone who did their best during the COVID-19 pandemic. We were unprepared. We did not have a central, national CDC to make us more prepared and to make sure that we would have the best possible response to a national pandemic. As a result, our response was clearly not as good as it could have been. This legislation and a national CDC will go a long way to ensuring that we are much more prepared for the future. That is what the people of Australia deserve.

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