Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

():  I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

In June 2020, in the days when oppositions actually developed policy, I went to the National Press Club to deliver my vision statement on science. My opening words were, 'One day, when the pandemic is over …'. With the spectre of a second wave of COVID then hanging over us, I talked about how the pandemic had been a wake-up call for Australia. I pointed out the anomaly that we were the only OECD country without an equivalent of America's Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Knowing that a stronger future for our country depended on that anomaly being addressed, I called for the establishment of an Australian Centre for Disease Control, properly resourced and independent—a CDC that would provide governments with consistent, rapid advice and a CDC with a focus on preparedness for any future pandemics, including drills and exercises.

We must not forget that one of the factors that saw Australia even more vulnerable to COVID and its impacts was that we hadn't had a pandemic drill since Exercise Sustain under the Rudd government a dozen years earlier. The grim consequence of the coalition government's complacency was that we were woefully underprepared for what came. As the COVID-19 inquiry report would eventually lay bare, Australia went into the pandemic with no playbook for the pandemic, limited readiness of the National Medical Stockpile, and badly stretched aged- and healthcare systems.

A few months after my vision statement I used my budget-in-reply speech to commit a future Labor government to establishing an Australian Centre for Disease Control to bring us into line with other advanced economies. I'm pleased that, with this legislation, having followed considerable work to make sure we got it right, we're once again turning a vision from opposition into a reality delivered in government and maintaining our momentum in delivering for all Australians.

We are heeding one of the core recommendations of the COVID-19 inquiry: to ensure that in the future we are as prepared, as a nation, as we can be. So what we did was the systematic, orderly, considered development of policy into progress that defines the way that this government operates. We came into government with a commitment. We established the COVID-19 inquiry first and waited to hear that evidence in our first term. We took that influence and used that input into policy, and then, of course, we introduced the legislation in this term. Now, these amendments will improve that legislation on the basis of being prepared to consider advice and the process which we have gone through.

This will make the ACDC operational from 1 January. It will be an independent statutory agency led by a director-general. It will bring together critical information and experts to protect Australia from diseases and other threats to public health. The Australian CDC will provide high-quality analysis and advice on public health risks to governments and the Australian community. It will also promote and coordinate action to prepare for and respond to these tasks. Just as we've worked to apply the economic lessons of the pandemic by investing in our manufacturing capacity, strengthening our supply chains and building our economic self-reliance, we must learn the health lessons of that time as well. That is what this legislation does.

On a small sidenote, you couldn't ask for a more Australian acronym than ACDC, though if this ACDC were to have a theme song—and I know raising contemporary music is dangerous in this House—it would have to be 'Highway to Hell'. Once again, our government is delivering for Australians, delivering carefully and delivering methodically. We are a government that looks to Australia's future armed with the lessons of the recent past and an understanding that Australians are always best served by a government that governs not just for today but for the long-term future of this nation. I commend the amendments and the bill to the House.

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