Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's always interesting listening to the member for New England. His contribution on this legislation, in my view, sums up exactly why we need this legislation—that is, the Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill 2025—which effectively sets up a centre for disease control.

All legislation that comes to this place is important. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be before us and it wouldn't be debated. But this legislation is particularly important. Again I thank the member for New England, who raised a number of matters as to why that is so. It's important because it's legislation that ultimately affects every single one of the Australian people, not only because it may directly affect their health but because it also affects the economy and the country in which we live. When COVID struck, Australia was not prepared for it and the world was not prepared for it. Indeed, the last pandemic to hit the world was some hundred years earlier. So nobody who was trying to respond and manage the COVID pandemic that hit us had had any previous experience in doing that. The response that we saw across the world varied from country to country, as it did from state to state here in Australia. What is regrettable is that in many cases the long-term health and economic disruptions that hit us between 2019 and 2022 still linger today, some years later.

Hardly a week goes by without someone speaking to me about the effects of the COVID that they contracted during that period, the effects of the vaccinations they received or, indeed, the economic disruptions they had to deal with at the time that effectively changed their life forever. In the interconnected world that we live in today it is more essential than ever before that we be better prepared for another global or national pandemic.

The proposal to establish a centre for disease control, which I understand is intended to commence on 1 January 2026—I hope that is the case and that it is not further delayed—was not only part of the COVID review recommendations. Quite frankly, it's a commonsense response to the lessons that we all learned from COVID. In particular, we learned that our national health services must be better resourced and coordinated and that we must have better data shared across all jurisdictions—not only jurisdictions here in Australia but across the world. Hopefully, having a centre for disease control established in Australia, as some other countries have already done, will be a step in the right direction. Importantly, the data should be collected and shared by a body that the community has absolute confidence in, a body that is independent and free of political or commercial interests.

The most common criticisms of the COVID experience that I have come across—I'm sure many of my colleagues in this place have had similar contact with people raising the same things—are that there were inadequate and unreliable medical research and COVID treatment options available to people, that the vaccine response was heavily influenced by big pharmaceutical companies with a vested interest in the vaccines and that directions from the World Health Organization could not always be relied on. There were, indeed, too many mixed messages and too many opinions out there at the time, which left people confused about what they should do. To this day, I regularly hear from people who are adamant that they or their family members continue to suffer from the long-term health effects of the COVID vaccines. Of course, it may be argued that the long-term health effects that they refer to could also be attributed to the COVID infection itself. Some of those questions will never truly be answered, and I know that the debate continues.

This legislation—the Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill 2025 and Australian Centre for Disease Control (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025—better coordinates the national health expertise that presently exists. The proposed director-general and advisory council will ensure both the independence and the health expertise that the community can have confidence in.

Australia already has a very thorough and cautious health regulation system. In fact, when I was a member of the health standing committee of this parliament I heard through one of our inquiries, where we were looking at the TGA approval process, about how cautious the Australian health system is. Many would say that the Australian health regulators are overcautious, too thorough and, consequently, too slow to clear medical advances. Whether that's true is, again, a matter for debate. Quite frankly, I think the overcautious approach of our health regulators can sometimes be in the national interest. But I accept that at times, because of that overcaution, medical breakthroughs are slow in being allowed to be used here in Australia.

Nevertheless, having a centre for disease control may streamline some processes and in turn ensure a faster response to health matters when there is an urgency to do so. When COVID struck there was an urgency to do so, which was indeed one of the very criticisms that we often faced—that we were allowing vaccinations to be administered that had not been properly proven. I can recall getting briefings from our health experts in this country, and I still believe to this day that the advice provided by those health experts was that Australia had in fact taken sufficient precautions before allowing any of those vaccinations to be released.

I note that under this legislation the Centre for Disease Control will assume control over a number of existing health functions and that it will collaborate with world health organisations. In fact, the member for New England a moment ago talked about biosecurity issues that he has legitimate concerns about. But my view is that this legislation will allow much better liaison between each of the health teams in this country, and it gives the director-general and the advisory council direct access to all the information that is available so that they can make the best possible decision on behalf of the Australian people.

We live in a world where people travel more than ever before, where global trade sees millions of shipping containers move from one country to another every year. I was just looking up some statistics on that. I understand that each year around 250 million shipping containers are shipped from one place to another, and on any given day there are about six million shipping containers out there on the seas. We know that because of people travelling and because of goods being exported from one country to another the risk of disease infection spreading from one country to another is greater than ever before. Again, it is for reasons like that that we need the Centre for Disease Control, as a way of trying to manage the issues if a disease does come to our country. We have seen even in the past couple of decades things like HIV/AIDS and Ebola, as well as COVID, decimating some countries and certainly having an impact right around the world.

Setting up the Centre for Disease Control will of course cost money. I understand it's going to cost some $251 million over the next four years and about $70 million annually thereafter. My view is that, as with all health expenditure, the health costs of doing nothing are always much higher than spending the money up-front, being prepared and saving taxpayer dollars downstream, which is what will happen if we don't set this up and we go through another episode, as we did with COVID, where we saw the costs ballooning right out. Again, the member for New England touched on that and made that very point. So we don't want to do that again. We want to be in a situation where we can better manage an outbreak when it occurs.

I will finish on this point and use some examples to justify the point I'm about to make. Having a health system that the Australian people can have confidence in has been a core Labor value for decades. It has been a priority issue for the Australian people, a priority issue for the Albanese Labor government and a priority issue for the Minister for Health and Ageing, who is in the chamber right now. As a result of that, since 2022 we have seen a remarkable transformation of our health system in this country.

We have tripled the bulk-billing incentive, which was initially for pensioners, concession card holders and families with children. From 1 November that will be extended to all Medicare eligible patients, and I note that, previous to that, the coalition government had frozen the rebate for years. We've opened over 90 bulk-billed Medicare urgent care clinics, and there are more than another 40 to come. Labor has delivered cheaper medicines, with a script to cost Australians no more than $25 under the PBS. Again, this is the lowest, I think, since 2004. The cost of PBS medicines for pensioners and concession card holders has been frozen at $7.70 until 2030. We've established a network of 61 free walk-in adult Medicare mental health centres across Australia, and we're establishing 33 endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics across every state and territory.

Those are just some of the key matters, but there are a lot more, and I'm sure the minister for health can elaborate on those if he wishes to. The reality is that health is the one single issue that matters to each and every Australian, because at some stage in their life they will need to have access to our health system in one way or another. This legislation not only will directly impact on how we can manage another pandemic, should one occur, but, quite frankly, would also ensure that we better manage the economy as a result of what we saw from COVID, which had a devastating effect on so many Australians.

I commend the legislation to the House. I hope it is not delayed, because, personally, I'd like to see it kick off on 1 January 2026.

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