Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We debate a lot of things in this place. We move new legislation that becomes law and we set up new institutions. Understandably, there is sometimes confusion, not necessarily appreciating the significance of the moment, but I think this bill represents an important long-term contribution to the better health of the nation. We have said, through the course of a once-in-a-generation pandemic, that we would learn a lot of lessons. Now it's time to back that up with hard evidence. I would submit to the House that this is one of those cases that demonstrates just that. We've moved beyond the talk, and we're setting in place something that has been called for for nearly 40 years. The reality is that many people recognised we needed such a centre to help us with moments in time where there were threats to public health at a large scale and that we needed a coordinating body that could best inform and draw together efforts to combat those moments in time where public health was at threat.

Clearly, having something like the Australian Centre for Disease Control is one of those investments in the long-term health of the nation. It will be an independent, non-corporate Commonwealth entity, with the bill establishing the roles, the powers, the functions and the duty of the agency and its director-general. It was a commitment made by former shadow health minister Chris Bowen that then continued to be championed by the now Minister for Health, Mark Butler. I think it's an important and enduring part of our long-term public health architecture. An interim CDC was established in January last year, and this bill will bring to life what's required, particularly in transferring public health responsibilities to the director-general of the CDC and for the Biosecurity Act, the National Health Security Act and the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Act. It will have a number of other important functions to be embedded in this CDC.

The CDC idea was brought to the fore during this last pandemic that we had to all endure. As indicated, we've had to go through these once-in-a-generation pandemics. Often, people would remind us of the experience of our forebears through Spanish influenza back in the last century and how devastating that was. We've had other major public health threats as well. Sometimes the distance between those events means that our collective memory fades. We don't necessarily put the same amount of investment in being able to protect and prevent the impact of some of these things on the broader public. Or there are, understandably, advances in care and containment that would not require of us the same level of approach as has previously been experienced.

However, I think there are some important things that do need to be reflected on. My contribution in this debate was brought on by listening to the former deputy prime minister and member for Riverina, who I've got a lot of regard for. Even though we have differences of opinion, I do respect his contribution to the debate and his contribution in the last government, particularly being part of a government responding to COVID. However, while I might have regard for him, we do have different opinions. We have different opinions on the way that the COVID pandemic was managed by the former government. I think it is important that some of those differences be put on the record.

The former deputy prime minister may be proud of Australia's response to COVID, and there were a lot of elements to be proud about relative to other nations. What we saw in terms of their responses and the impacts on their populations was pretty significant. But perspective also gives you a different vantage point from which to review past events, and the history, as it was experienced in our part of the world and in Western Sydney, was different. I also think it's important to recognise that the incoming coalition government of 2013 did make cuts to pandemic preparedness that had been worked on back in 2008 and 2009 by the government before them, because people recognised that you need to. Even though it might not affect you straight away or during your course of government, at some point it will, and it's important to replenish the institutions that manage it.

When we started to see evidence of COVID emerging in late 2019 and early 2020, the concern about what effect this would have started to mount. I found it a bit hard, as a member of this parliament, to see a government response to COVID relegated to a dixer—a three-minute response in question time—as opposed to taking the serious step of convening a ministerial statement that would walk through what the risks were and what things needed to be done to help prepare the nation. I was critical at the time, too, of the former health minister. I appreciate that he did undertake a number of things at that point in time, but the country should have been taken into the confidence of the government and walked through what was being done ahead of what we actually experienced.

We had leaders of this former government encourage attendance at mass events when scientists and medical practitioners were saying that that was the worst thing to do—to attend major sporting events and be part of a potential distribution of COVID. They then had to walk that back. We tried to get vaccines developed here. Unfortunately, it didn't work, but I commend the former government for encouraging that. But then, when it was clear other jurisdictions were developing the vaccine and we needed to order the vaccine in large numbers for the population, that didn't happen, and we were in the back of the queue in terms of vaccine purchase. I don't need to mention the COVIDSafe app in any great degree; that did not work out as a great contact-tracing platform. There was a $60 billion rounding error on JobKeeper, and not everyone got access to JobKeeper. I remember talking in the parliament about workers at places like dnata who were in the electorate I represent and who couldn't get JobKeeper and were laid off and couldn't maintain contact with their work. I want to thank the Transport Workers Union for maintaining the focus on that issue. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, the former government would not amend its JobKeeper provisions to allow for people to be sustained in their employment.

I spoke in this place about the docking of the Ruby Princess. I have friends I went to school with whose parents were on the Ruby Princess and died as a result of getting COVID on there. There were a whole lot of questions about why it was allowed to be docked at that point and why those aboard were just released en masse—2,000 people—into the community when there was evidence that COVID was being experienced on that vessel.

The New South Wales government did a good job on a lot of things, but I had big differences with them about locking down Western Sydney and dividing the city in half, and it seemed to be accepted by the former federal government. There was a saying at the time, 'We're all in this together,' but the former federal government did undertake partisan attacks on state jurisdictions. I remember the Palaszczuk government in Queensland calling for support to set up quarantine facilities. They couldn't get anywhere. The Victorian government was continually chipped and criticised by senior representatives of the former Morrison government. The federal government joined with Clive Palmer to put pressure on the WA government to bring down its borders and stop the lockdown that protected that state. That happened at the time. It was astounding. No Western Australian forgot the fact that Scott Morrison and Christian Porter, the Attorney-General, sided with Clive Palmer to bring down that lockdown. That was staggering.

So it seemed to me we were all in it together as long as you voted for the coalition, and I don't think that's acceptable from a public health perspective. That is a significant and, I appreciate, offensive remark for members of the coalition. I get that. But that's how it was felt. When they locked down Western Sydney—and from my recollection no national or state leader visited when that lockdown occurred—people at the time felt like they had been discriminated against and racially profiled because of where they lived. That was absolutely a point that was raised in a report by the Australian Catholic University and the United Workers Union, who said that people from Western Sydney suburbs felt targeted and racially discriminated against compared to Sydney's affluent eastern suburbs residents, who were allowed greater freedoms in the lockdown. So we had that.

The other thing that got to me was that, at the point of lockdown, the supports that were necessary for the region going through the lockdown—a region that contained essential workers who sustained the city during COVID—were not provided. Here are some examples. In Mount Druitt, which I represent, we fought for ages to get a vaccination hub and were denied it. There was no support out of the federal government or the state government, the Berejiklian government, to get that vaccine hub. The Premier was questioned repeatedly about this, at a time when 3,000 people a week were getting infected. The hardest thing for me is hearing stories about kids orphaned because both their parents died as a result of COVID. That was too hard. That is still, for me, a scar in my mind for the people who I represent. They didn't get the support that they needed. Mental health support hubs were set up in Liberal electorates but not in the areas that were hardest hit. That is a fact you can go and see. In the electorate of Lindsay—the state electorate of Penrith—they got a mental health support hub. Why wasn't this done across Western Sydney? It shouldn't be that way.

Public health is too important to be politicised. The reason why we're proud of our public health system and our universal health care is that it reflects a value of this nation. Australia says that, regardless of your income or where you live, we should fight to make sure you get the health care that you need. I'm proud of the fact that our country values that and that it fights for it. To be frank—putting aside the politics—both sides of politics get the importance of Medicare and a universal healthcare system. We may have different levels of commitment to it, but I think we have now gone beyond thinking that Medicare will be dismantled. It's about the level of investment in it. But I did feel really strongly, and I still feel really strongly, about the fact that Western Sydney was treated differently. We didn't have national or state leaders in, and we didn't have the supports that were needed, and we didn't have the coordination required to help people in need. The other thing, to talk about salt in the wound, was that the areas that were hit hardest by COVID were also hit hardest by COVID related fines. In Mount Druitt, nearly $1.4 million in fines were handed out to people in the areas I represent, some of which are huge low-socioeconomic areas. So they were not given the support—the vax hubs and the mental health hubs—and they were locked down, treated differently and fined hard.

The reason I speak on this bill is that, if we've learnt anything out of that pandemic, it's the need to better coordinate, to not treat people in different regions differently and to be able to do what we can to coordinate a response—particularly standing up greater levels of support for vulnerable communities. In large part, the way to do that, I would argue to the House, is setting up something like a CDC that can do just that and work across jurisdictions. I hope, when we say we've learned the lessons of the pandemic, we genuinely mean it, and I'm proud of the fact that this CDC is evidence we may be doing something to do better.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to stand and speak on the Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill 2025 because back in 2015, as the Minister for Agriculture, I moved one of the biggest pieces of legislation that we'd seen, which was the Biosecurity Act, and this intertwines with the Biosecurity Act, on the information I've received. Unfortunately, I need more information about exactly how that is fleshed out. I haven't seen that. That was a crucial piece of legislation. I've brought it to the attention of people who say that it has nothing to do with it. I just got back the information from the Library, which says, 'The bill amends a wide range of existing legislation, including the Freedom of Information Act 1982 and the Biosecurity Act 2015.' That was incredibly hard to get through. It was a very precarious day when we finally got it passed through the Senate. I hope, if the Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill goes to Senate inquiry, we can get a greater understanding of exactly what the interconnection is, because we know that it is there.

I remember, after the passage of the biosecurity bill, at that time, it was the biggest piece of legislation that parliament had seen. I was really chuffed. I thought: 'That's pretty good! How did that happen? I hope I get a big rap.' Nothing seemed to happen; no-one seemed to care about my moment of glory. So I was trying to work out how to throw a bit of light on my magnum opus, and then this gentleman called Johnny Depp turned up with a couple of dogs, and all my dreams came true!

This is so important because the biosecurity of our nation is imperative, especially on the ag side. We would be decimated if we had an outbreak of foot-and-mouth. There would be an immediate shutdown of the movement of everything—the movement of soils and earthworks. Everything would stops. The whole place would shut down. You've got to understand the process of that and how it intertwines with this. If we had foot-and-mouth, the consequences to the Australian economy would be billions and billions of dollars. The consequences to regional towns would be massive. We would lose major exports. We would have the decimation of herds. As they say, when you get a foot-and-mouth outbreak, you can basically see it coming towards you, and anything that is in that area has to be destroyed; it has to be killed.

The problem that we've got in Australia is that it's not only in its bovine form but also in its porcine form—porcine, of course, is pigs. Wild pigs are endemic everywhere, and our capacity to actually control that disease would be near impossible.

I have good knowledge of this. My father was a vet for the department of agriculture when they did the impossible and got rid of bovine tuberculosis and bovine brucellosis. They thought we could never do it. Other countries—even New Zealand—couldn't do it. Australia did it. Although, we never prosecuted one person, I might say. But I do remember the heat that was involved in trying to make sure that Australia arrived at that place.

I'll never forget the time when my father, a vet and former serviceman, came charging out the door of the department of agriculture office on Griffin Avenue, Tamworth, with a farmer behind him. They were both taking off their ties and their coats to fight each other under the ginkgo tree, which was rather remarkable for me to see as an eight-year-old boy. I suppose that's a reflection of the heat.

We need to know what the interconnection is between those issues, as have been shown to me by the Parliamentary Library. I really want to know because there is so much on the line. There are other diseases, such as screwworm fly and rabies—of course, if that broke into Australia, because of our wild dog population, we'd never control it. It would completely change what happens to Australians when they go to a national park. In this instance, your safety would be called into question in certain areas. There are wild dogs, most certainly, in our area. If you go bushwalking, there are, most definitely, wild dogs there. Generally, they see you and run away. But, of course, if they are rabid, they don't; they run towards you and bite you. There is no cure for rabies; if you get it, you die and in a pretty horrific way. So these issues are incredibly important because there is a crossover between human health and animal health. I ask the minister and I ask others to dig deeper into exactly what that interconnection is.

I can't help, then, but to also go to the issue of how this was involved with COVID. Yes, people died from COVID, without a shadow of a doubt. Yes, people became critically ill under COVID. Yes, it was something that there needed to be a sense of caution around in terms of how people managed it. But I believe we way overreacted. What happened then was the state had primacy over the individual. You've always got to be cautious when the state becomes more powerful than the individual.

Right now, everywhere you go, there's going to be people with COVID. You're going to see them down the street. You're going to walk past them. You're going to be at functions with them. It hasn't disappeared; it's still there; it's all around. The issue now is—imagine if I said to you now: 'I'm going to lock you up in your house or your flat for 14 days. You're not allowed to go to the park.' We had people locked down, we had people locked out and, in some instances, we had people locked up. There was an excess to it in how it transpired, and a lot of people became—it also, in some instances, became a fan to the flame for conspiracy theories.

We have to be really careful when the state comes in and has this manifest power that completely consumes the right of the individual. I remember having COVID and people in hazmat suits were the only ones allowed to come to my door. I felt fine. I started to call it all into question.

The other thing that happened during COVID is our national debt went through the roof. They—and it was our side!—just started borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars like it didn't matter. Well, it does matter. We still owe the money; we still have to pay it back. It's a large part of that section. When people talk about debt heading towards a trillion dollars, there is a section that the coalition is responsible for. A big section of that were the so-called stimulus payments and everything that came with COVID. I believe that was an overreaction, a massive overreaction.

There were other issues attached to it. We gave $2 billion to Qantas, and then Mr Joyce paid himself a $10 million bonus. That was your money! This didn't seem to add up. There was a lot of money flushing around. That was part of COVID. It was all the same. You get this sense of the government saying, 'This is the excuse,' and you say, 'I think you have to be careful about spending all this money.' Then they say: 'COVID! Can't talk about it. It's all COVID.' And it's like now in that, every time they can't think of an answer, they say 'climate change'. 'My horse didn't come in.' 'Climate change!' 'I stubbed my toe.' 'Climate change!' Back then it was COVID. There wasn't that sense of temperance and balance, of understanding the risk and not completely throwing out people's rights on the way through.

And everything was apparently unchangeable. You couldn't do anything about it. I will tell you what did change it: people started to protest. They started to get very angry. First of all, they'd say: 'They're just ratbags. They're conspiracy theorists. They're crazy people.' But then you started seeing people who reminded you of your aunty or mum, and they'd be saying things like: 'I can't tolerate this anymore. I'm not going to be locked up anymore. This has to stop.' And one day, in this building—this is a very interesting thing to know. There's a mall out the front. I don't know where the front is; it's probably in one of these directions. It's called Federation Mall. If you have a protest out there and it's just a few people out the front, don't worry about it too much. If a crowd turns up and it starts to go down Federation Mall a little bit, maybe have a glance at it. If they fill up Federation Mall, be really careful. But then the protest against the impositions on people's private freedom, which had been imposed on people by reason of COVID, turned up. It went down Federation Mall, around Old Parliament House, down Commonwealth Avenue, I think, over the bridge and into the park on the other side. And immediately—this is surprising—laws started changing. All these incredible laws that could never change started changing pronto, because that protest said: 'You are out of government. It's all over. It's finished.' And we're lucky they turned up. We did need that change.

So the cautionary thing about this is: never lose sight—there will always be reasons to make incredible decisions during a calamity. But be really careful when the calamity reasoning is an imposition on your private rights as an Australian, your rights as an Australian citizen. You get the sense that once the states gets those rights, they are hesitant to hand them back. People love power, and when they get those rights they're very hesitant to hand them back.

If you don't follow this sort of legislation closely—there are people that are not terribly interested in this—you wouldn't find out what is happening in the chamber. During debate on that legislation there was a potential loss of your rights. The government started to have the capacity to control more of your life. You've got to be careful about it. So, when I watching this in my room, I thought, 'I'd better get in the chamber and worry about this,' because we've seen the consequences of this.

What we have to do now is go to the Australian people with all of this and say: 'We understood the risks. We understood that action was required. But the excesses of the proscribing of rights'—not 'prescribing' but 'proscribing', which means 'removal'—'that happened in association with COVID will not happen to the Australian people again.' It was not a war. It was a disease and it's still there. If you believe that what happened to the Australian people was not excessive then why did we stop? Why did we stop? We should be swabbing everybody as they come into this building, we should be swabbing every parliamentarian, we should be not allowing people to go to church, we should be shutting down sporting fixtures and shutting down shopping malls, we should be not allowing people to fly anywhere, we should be shutting down planes, because it's still there; COVID's still there.

Now, to be quite frank, there are a lot of people who probably don't get the vaccinations—and it didn't turn out the way we thought we were told it was going to, because you can test yourself. If that had been the case, all those restrictions would still be here. But they're not, and thank God they're not. But, if you look back, we have to ask ourselves: Why did we all get caught in that 'It's A-OK to do this'? Why wasn't there more temperance? Why wasn't there more of a debate—where people said: 'Just slow down. Let's have a closer look at this. Let's get another opinion. Let's ask ourselves some serious questions. Let's have a proper debate before we start borrowing multiple hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus packages. Let's ask serious questions before we start giving billions and billions of dollars to one organisation, a private organisation, Qantas'? When they paid themselves bonuses later on, why didn't we ask for the money back? It would have been taxpayers' money. Why didn't we ask for it back? That didn't happen. With everything, you've got to be really careful of this place at times. It goes into calamity-cult mode, and all of a sudden it just charges down, and you're apparently beneath contempt if you raise a question. You've just got to be so careful of that.

They are doing it again. That time it was COVID. The next one is the big C—climate change. You're not allowed to ask any questions or you're a denier, you're not a believer. Therefore, we have to accept everything, chapter and verse, that is said, and a lot of it is bunkum and crazy. This time, we're going to spend over a trillion dollars trying to change the climate—from this room, from here! It is nuts! It is completely and utterly off its head! But, if you talk about it, no, you're an evil person; you're contemptuous. On this one, I hope when it goes to a Senate inquiry there is a very hard look at this piece of legislation.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to 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 coordinate 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—and 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.

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my friend, the member for Makin, for his thoughtful contribution to this bill, the Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill 2025, and for his thoughtful contribution over many years to good health policy in this country. I want to thank other members who have contributed to the debate on the establishment of the Australian Centre for Disease Control. I want to acknowledge the genuine interest and thoughtful engagement from members of this House in relation to this important bill. I've appreciated the constructive dialogue and the feedback that has been shared, and I've met with a number of members to discuss the bill in detail. The level of engagement reflects the significance of the bill and the shared commitment to delivering an Australian CDC that will strengthen the country's capabilities. I share the members' interests in seeing the CDC become a lasting, trusted pillar of Australia's public health architecture.

This bill delivers on the government's promise to establish an Australian centre for disease control as a statutory agency within my portfolio, commencing on 1 January 2026. Establishing a transparent, trusted and independent CDC will strengthen Australia's public health capability, improve pandemic preparedness and safeguard the health and wellbeing of all Australians, not just in times of crisis but every day. The need for a national CDC has never been clearer.

The independent COVID-19 Response Inquiry found Australia went into the COVID pandemic with no playbook for the pandemic, limited readiness of the National Medical Stockpile and badly stretched aged-care and healthcare systems. The inquiry identified serious gaps in our national response to the pandemic. These included the absence of a central authority to provide consistent advice, fragmented data systems and outdated emergency planning. The message was clear: we must not allow our public health systems to fall into neglect or into short-term thinking.

The inquiry also spoke about the need to rebuild trust and maintain public trust. Trust in the health advice that informs governments when making decisions can have a significant impact on peoples' lives. The Australian CDC will bring the independence and, importantly, the transparency that the public rightly expects. It will make its advice to governments and the reasons behind the advice transparently available to the public.

Establishing a permanent Australian CDC through this bill will deliver on our commitment to create an independent agency that will help protect Australia from diseases and other public health threats. It ensures that Australia joins our international peers in establishing a permanent national centre for disease control. The Australian CDC will be an independent Commonwealth agency separate from the Department of Health. It will draw on the best scientific and technical expertise across the country and serve as a national leader and authoritative voice on public health, helping to set strategic priorities and guide responses to emerging threats.

The Australian CDC's initial priorities will focus on communicable diseases, pandemic preparedness and capabilities in environmental health and occupational respiratory diseases. Progressive expansion into areas such as chronic conditions will be considered following an independent review of the CDC's funding and operations in 2028. The review will assess the Australian CDC's effectiveness in delivering on its initial priorities and help inform a staged widening of its remit over time.

The Australian CDC will consult widely with public-health experts, clinicians, academics and communities. It will engage closely with those with lived experience of health threats and response measures to inform its advice. This inclusive approach ensures that the CDC's advice is grounded in real-world impacts and is sensitive to the social, cultural and economic factors that shape health outcomes in nuanced ways across our diverse society. No Australian will be left behind.

The Australian CDC will complement, not duplicate, the work of existing government agencies. It will enhance our national capacity by providing high-quality, independent advice and improving access to timely, reliable data. It will support the Commonwealth and state and territory governments in planning for and responding to health emergencies. The Australian CDC will work closely with states and territories and tailor its engagement to meet the unique needs of each jurisdiction, ensuring that national coordination does not come at the expense of local relevance.

To ensure accountability, the Australian CDC will be led by a director-general, who reports directly to the Minister for Health and is accountable to the parliament. Supporting the director-general will be an advisory council made up of members with deep expertise in relevant fields, including public health, clinical practice, economics, human rights, data, emergency management and communications. At least one member must be an Aboriginal person or Torres Strait Islander and must have expertise in the health needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, supporting our commitment to closing the gap.

Transparency is a cornerstone of this reform. One of the most powerful lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic is that Australians expect clarity in public-health decision-making. The CDC will be required to publish the advice it provides to governments. This will help rebuild public trust, counter misinformation and ensure that communities and businesses have the information they need to act effectively during future crises. Data will be at the heart of the CDC's work. The COVID-19 inquiry highlighted a critical weakness in our pandemic response. Decisions were often made without sufficient evidence due to fragmented and inaccessible data. This bill addresses that gap.

The CDC will lead the development of a modern approach to national public-health data that enables faster detection of risks, more consistent responses across jurisdictions and stronger foundations for planning. The CDC will use advanced data analytics to detect emerging threats and provide timely, independent advice. It will also streamline data-sharing across the Commonwealth and states and territories, supported, of course, by strong privacy safeguards. These data functions have been developed using a privacy-by-design approach, ensuring that transparency and individual rights are protected at every single stage.

This bill is the result of more than three years of policy development and public consultation. It closes the governance and data gaps that undermined our pandemic response. It reflects the input of key stakeholders. And it establishes a CDC that is built to deliver real, lasting impact. To ensure the CDC remains effective and fit for purpose, the government will conduct a legislative review every five years. This will allow us to monitor its performance, adapt to new challenges and ensure that the legislation continues to support the CDC's mission, particularly in improving the availability and the use of public-health data.

This bill establishes a permanent, evidence based institution to ensure that Australia is better prepared, more united and more accountable in the face of future public health threats. It is a long overdue reform, one that honours the hard lessons of the past and builds a stronger, healthier future for all Australians. I commend the bill to the House.

Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this, the honourable member for Kooyong has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The honourable member for Mackellar has moved as an amendment to that amendment that all words after 'House' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment moved by the honourable member for Mackellar be agreed to.

Question negatived.

The question now is that the amendment moved by the honourable member for Kooyong be agreed to.

Question negatived.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the House is the bill be read a second time.