The center will be overseen by a director-general, appointed by the health minister, and is slated to begin its operations on January 1, 2026.

The Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA), regarded as the leading authority on public health in the country, has hailed the legislation that establishes an Australian CDC as the most significant development in public health infrastructure in decades.

Griffin also said the CDC will ensure components of public health responses like the surveillance of infectious diseases, data collection and communication, and recommendations around vaccination are standardised across Australia.

“We have a lot of confusion between different states, a lot of differences and so hopefully having an organisation to coordinate those responses will ensure there’s some consistency as well as clarity,” he said.

A long time coming

Douglas described a consensus among epidemiologists from the Australasian Epidemiological Association that “although Australian therapeutic health services are highly developed, disease-control activities are fragmented, inadequate and poorly coordinated”.

While Australia fared better than other countries in terms of mortality rate from COVID-19 and its economic recovery, the pandemic response took a severe toll on the nation.

“This poses risks to our resilience to face another crisis.”

What will the CDC do?

The first priorities for the agency from January will be “communicable diseases, pandemic preparedness and capabilities in environmental health and occupational health and respiratory diseases”, McAllister said. However, she said the centre could expand into areas such as chronic diseases following an independent review in 2028.