I am back almost in black to talk about something that I am very fond of, and that is a CDC. I am thunderstruck that the opposition would even think to criticise our health policy since they have had none for a number of years. Some of the comments by the opposition then are just not true. Hells bells, who made who? Money talks, and we are putting money in front of the Australian Centre for Disease Control. Are you ready for it? It will be great. We as a government will walk all over you, the opposition, in health policy any day of the week.
I speak on the Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill 2025 and I thank the minister for introducing such a vital piece of legislation to our national health policy and national health security. The Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill is our government's considered response, after much consultation, to the unprecedented challenges of the 2019 coronavirus pandemic, a crisis for which we were not adequately prepared and whose repercussions we continue to feel today and will continue to feel for many years. I was a member of the NHMRC advisory committee, one of the two politicians appointed to that committee by health minister Greg Hunt during the pandemic, the other being my very good friend member of the opposition Katie Allen, and I wish her well as she goes through a number of health challenges now.
We saw firsthand how our response lacked information and resilience during the pandemic. We did very well—it's true—but it wasn't perfect, and there were a number of difficulties we had to overcome during the pandemic and in how things could have been improved. What it did demonstrate was that we did need a centre for disease control—an Australian version, not a repeat of the American version, which has its own challenges. We saw from how our country fared during the pandemic that we have amazing health resources, but we needed an efficient way of bringing them all together and a way of making sure that that information could be delivered to the government in a timely fashion and that responses could be considered and made appropriately.
COVID-19 was an unforeseen pandemic, and our existing frameworks, which were primarily designed for viruses like influenza, exposed critical vulnerabilities in our national response. This included not only deficiencies in medical stockpile supplies but a lack of coordination, a lack of data sharing, an overstretched aged and healthcare system and inconsistent responses between federal and state government directives. I saw that firsthand in immunisation policy.
I will give credit where credit is due. I do believe that the Morrison government, and Scott Morrison himself, made some critical decisions that were very important in our initial COVID-19 response—the closure of the borders. Even though he did it reluctantly, he did it quickly. It led to a significant gain in time to get our responses in order. It was a real tribute to health workers around Australia, and I give credit to them now, as I have since that time, for their resilience, their cooperation and their ability to change policy and change their work practices very quickly—unfortunately, in some cases, not quickly enough. We know, in the aged care places, that there were some absolute tragedies—the spread of infection without adequate infection control and without the ability to remove infected patients from aged care quickly enough. There were certainly inconsistencies around immunisation response, but, as I say, I give credit where credit is due, and I think that the responses of Greg Hunt and then prime minister Scott Morrison were pretty good overall.
Our CDC is set to commence operations on 1 January 2026, and I certainly look forward to it. The Centre for Disease Control will be a transparent, trusted and independent body, and it will strengthen Australia's public health capability, enhance pandemic preparedness and safeguard the health and wellbeing of all Australians. We found that, during the pandemic, there were certainly some very vulnerable populations, particularly in groups such as our Indigenous population, our CALD communities and communities with long distances between them and healthcare facilities.
Establishing a centre for disease control reflects a core election commitment and delivers on key recommendations from the COVID-19 response inquiry report, the inquiry for which was led by independent panel members Robyn Kruk AO, Professor Catherine Bennett and Dr Angela Jackson. This inquiry warned that another pandemic is inevitable, although its timing and nature remain unknown. That is why Australia must be prepared, and readiness must now begin. One of the most prominent and widely supported recommendations of the inquiry was the creation of a national centre for disease control, which will serve as a central hub for surveillance, data collection, evidence based guidance and risk assessment, helping to ensure a more coordinated, informed and timely response to emerging public health threats. This is what we are delivering. This aligns Australia with its international counterparts such as Singapore, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and other European nations, where they already have dedicated national public health institutions. The absence of such an institution during the COVID-19 pandemic did place Australia at a disadvantage.
The new CDC will operate as an independent agency. While still under the portfolio of health, the CDC will operate without ministerial direction, a structure designed to build trust, safeguard scientific integrity and deliver public health advice based solely on evidence. That means the evidence the CDC gathers and gives to government will not be conditional on what the government wants to hear. I want to stress that, and that is really important. Unfortunately we are seeing now in the United States that health policy is being delivered by people who are not qualified to give health policy, and people long trusted in the American system are now being ignored. Populism has really taken over from true health policy and science. We don't want that to happen in Australia, and that's why this part of the legislation is really important. The CDC has to be independent of political interference.
The centre will bring together a diverse range of professionals, including epidemiologists, data scientists, public health researchers and population health experts, and we do have them in Australia. We saw that during the pandemic. We need to bring them together so they can deliver timely advice to the government. We did that with the NHMRC scientific panel, of which I was a member during the pandemic, and we need to ensure what we are doing and the policies the CDC gives us are grounded in rigorous evidence based knowledge shaped by science and shaped by the best possible available insights. What the centre will do—beyond advising federal, state and territory ministers on public health matters—is extend the expertise to Commonwealth entities, international agencies and non-government organisations, and they all played a critical role in the pandemic. It will also play a critical role in building public awareness around health threats and equipping Australians with the knowledge and tools needed to reduce the risk of illness, morbidity and mortality.
As a trusted and authoritative source of public health advice the centre will provide clear evidence based information to the general public, health professionals and governments across the country. The centre will be empowered to provide expert advice in the most effective ways to manage all forms of disease, including leading national efforts on disease surveillance and monitoring, public health coordination and the development of response protocols. It will provide real-time data analysis, develop consistent national guidance, support outbreak investigation and help coordinate rapid responses to emerging health threats, ensuring Australia is better prepared and more resilient in future health emergencies.
We did make some mistakes during the pandemic and really only realised some of them in retrospect. I think one of the things we did that caused long-term harm was school closures, and they could have been much better thought through if we'd had proper evidence based policy around that. Air quality is another issue we should be thinking about, very importantly, in disease management, particularly for airborne and droplet-spread viruses such as COVID-19 but even things like influenza and some of the new and evolving respiratory viruses, of which there are many. Certainly in my field of paediatrics we are seeing new respiratory viruses evolve all the time.
To support the initiative and growth in the CDC the government has committed $251 million to establish and operate the centre, with ongoing funding of $73 million allocated from 2028-29. While we need the centre now, we are also ensuring the success, sustainability, functionality and viability, allowing for its adaptation and evolution with our national needs, and that may include in the future looking at non-infectious diseases but also long-term public health threats such as obesity, type II diabetes and other public health issues in the future. This bill is an opportunity for the CDC to deliver a more modern approach to national public health data to enable more accurate and faster detection of risks, more consistent response across borders and a strong foundation for pandemic planning and management in the future.
The CDC will not duplicate existing work across governments, but will complement and enhance national capacity through high-quality reporting and advising. We'll use state resources as well in our universities, research centres and hospitals. It will mean that we are able to respond faster and smarter to emerging threats. I saw this in my own hospitals during the pandemic, with not just equipment but understanding that there may be other treatments that can be used—some were not useful. We needed to be much more resilient and much more responsive to using new treatments as the evidence accumulated, and we were slow in some instances in doing that. We did fall down a little in some of our testing protocols and also, I think, in the use of our antivirals—with difficulty for many people to obtain antiviral treatments at the beginning of the disease when they are most effective. So I think that there are lots of things the CDC will be looking at.
The director-general will also be taking on roles such as those listed under the Biosecurity Act, the National Health Security Act and the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Act, which is a fitting and resourceful thing to do. It's important that the director-general and the CDC do have oversight of the issues. The establishment of an advisory council to support the director-general adds an additional layer of expert oversight and strategic guidance. By drawing on a diverse mix of professionals, the council will guarantee the centre's advice and actions are grounded in the latest science, are responsive to the needs of different population groups and reflect a range of sector perspectives.
In the last minute or so left to me I just want to say to the coalition: I wish you were on board with this. This is a piece of legislation—and something that you should be supporting in a bipartisan manner. I'm not going to lecture you about this, but one of the great things that Greg Hunt—a former health minister—did during the pandemic was try to get us to adopt a bipartisan approach, and, for the most part, we did. The fact that you are opposing this legislation from the very beginning is a real travesty and it's a real reflection of your lack of understanding of health policy. I really wish you would take this on board, from the bottom of my heart. This is something that is really important to me. It's really important to this parliament. It's really important to this country. And if you can find it in yourselves to take on board this legislation to support the CDC, it will make a huge difference to the health policy in this country.
