Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill 2025, Australian Centre for Disease Control (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025

Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle—Deputy Speaker) (19:22): We certainly won't be taking a lecture from the member for Goldstein on disease control in this country after that astonishingly rude outburst defaming all kinds of people and using parliamentary privilege to say what he wouldn't dare say outside of this chamber. But that's his style. I would like to really move to the substance of the bill before us, because, unlike the member for Goldstein, I will be relevant to the bill that is before the House this evening.

I rise to speak in very strong support of the Australian Centre for Disease Control (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025. This is by no means a dry, technical bill. It's a vital piece of foundational architecture that will underpin our nation's capacity to protect lives, manage public health risks and ensure that Australia is better prepared for the next pandemic or health emergency.

And why wouldn't every government in Australia want to be on a path of continuous improvement? That is the ambition of the Albanese Labor government. It is true that the Morrison government didn't get everything right.

I'm sure there are governments at all levels across Australia that have reflected on the time of the global pandemic, and it is precisely a centre for disease control which many experts from Australia asked for. I'll come to that a little bit later on. But let's begin by acknowledging that the time for complacency is well and truly over.

The lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic remain fresh in our minds, and the recommendations of the COVID-19 response inquiry are unequivocal. Australia must build institutional capacity and clarity in public health decision-making so that we are never again caught without a playbook. The inquiry noted several significant gaps in dataflows, in coordination across jurisdictions and in public trust.

This consequential and transitional provisions bill is a key bridge between where we stand now and a more robust, resilient future. Some may regard this bill as a mere technical fix to the principal Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill, but, in fact, these supporting provisions that I just spoke of are utterly essential. Without them, the legislative framework would be incomplete, roles and responsibilities would be unclear, statutory functions would remain stranded in legacy legislation and the transition to the new Centre for Disease Control would be chaotic.

So this bill ensures that the existing public health functions now in the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, under the Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer or under other bodies are properly migrated to the Centre for Disease Control director-general; that the machinery-of-government changes proceed smoothly, with documents, records and responsibilities transferred in an orderly way, including preserving continuity of existing arrangements while the new agency is bedded in; that conflicting overlapping of legislation is reconciled; and that appropriate exemptions and protections are preserved—for example, in the Freedom of Information Act—so that protected information under the Centre for Disease Control bill is handled carefully.

These are not mere housekeeping matters; they are important scaffolding upon which a trusted, effective and legally coherent centre for disease control will stand. Let us not lose sight of the ultimate goal here. The establishment of the standalone statutory Australian Centre for Disease Control is a transformational reform.

It's one that a Labor government will very, very proudly stand up to defend in this parliament. Until now, Australia has lacked a truly national expert public health agency with clearly conferred powers and independence. Indeed, prior to this, Australia was the only OECD country without a centre for disease control style national body.

Let me repeat that—Australia was the only OECD country not to have a centre for disease control style national body. This gap has hampered coordination across the state and territories, its limited agility in response and it's made central leadership in health and medical agencies less effective. If ever we needed an example of where we needed to have that kind of national leadership, it was during COVID.

Those of us in the national parliament at the time remember very clearly the need for such leadership. Under this bill, the new Centre for Disease Control will have functions to collect, analyse and share critical public health information and data; advise and communicate with governments, health agencies and the public; develop and publish guidelines, statements and standards; conduct or commission awareness, education and prevention campaigns; and serve as a conduit for Australia's obligations under international health law.

In short, the Centre for Disease Control will be the nucleus of public health leadership. It will be accountable, transparent and expert driven. So it'd be astonishing for anybody in this House to stand up and oppose this bill, to vote against such an important, critical, transformative legislative framework that will deliver good public health leadership and outcomes.

I really call on members opposite to think carefully, to remember what it was like in this national parliament at a time when we needed to be able to pull all of those levers together. Let's not be caught next time there is a pandemic without a national body like the Centre for Disease Control. This is a time for this parliament to really show some good leadership from all sides and stand behind important public health initiatives in the national interest.

It's a bill that everybody in this parliament should be getting behind, and I absolutely commend this bill to the House and look forward to speaking on it at a later time. Debate adjourned.