General News
25 October, 2024
Lagging on issue of grave importance
Every other OECD country has a CDC.
Who would have thought, given the impact of COVID-19, that the Albanese government would drag its heels for so long on the Australian Centre for Disease Control it promised to deliver in its first term.
While the lack of progress has rarely made headlines until now that will change following the release of the final report of the inquiry into the national COVID-19 response. It is timely to note the government also appears to have over promised and under delivered with the inquiry.
In 2022 voters had been led to believe the oft-promised inquiry would either be a royal commission, or have similar powers to one to collect evidence and compel people to testify.
"We will need an assessment," Mr Albanese said in January, 2022.
"When we get towards the end [of the pandemic], then you'd give consideration to that. Whether that would be a royal commission or some form of inquiry, it will need to happen".
While Labor was quick to set up the royal commission into robodebt, which was highly damaging to the Coalition, it held off on announcing its COVID-19 response inquiry until last September.
The inquiry's powers and scope were slammed as inadequate by many commentators. It was widely believed the government stopped short of a royal commission in order to provide cover for state Labor governments whose actions during the pandemic might not stand up to forensic legal analysis and scrutiny.
The Victorian, Western Australian and Queensland governments, which implemented lengthy and strictly enforced border closures and, in Victoria's case, the longest lockdown in the world, were considered particularly vulnerable.
While not wishing to pre-empt the findings of the inquiry it will likely find Australia was not prepared for the pandemic, that communication and co-operation between neighbouring jurisdictions often broke down, and that state and territory officials often lacked the knowledge and the expertise to manage the basics including the safe management of quarantine.
With the benefit of hindsight it is also obvious that the PPE supply chain issues that caused so much concern during the first phase of the pandemic should have been anticipated.
All of these factors highlight the need for Australia to have a world-class centre for disease control which would take the lead when - not if - the next pandemic reaches our shores. We are, after all, the only OECD country that doesn't have one.
Given there is broad bipartisan and crossbench support, Mr Albanese and Health Minister Mark Butler need to tell voters why this has taken so long that the interim CDC head Paul Kelly, who was also the chief medical officer, has retired before a site is chosen, the CDC's "scope and functions" have been delineated, and ongoing funding allocated.
The government will, of course, fall back on the recent statement by the first assistant secretary of the CDC establishment taskforce, Helen Grinbergs, that decisions on the "scope and functions" couldn't be made until the inquiry's interim report landed.
But is that the case? Many countries, including the US - which is also a federation, have highly regarded CDCs that could serve as a template. And, even if one accepts this argument, the government is culpable given its delay in setting up the inquiry has made it extremely unlikely legislation to establish a CDC will be passed before the 2025 election.
This government has repeatedly been criticised for being slow to act on issues such as the cost-of-living crisis. Its latest apparent failure to deliver on a core election promise will give opponents even more grist for their mills.