Canberra pushes to be home to ACDC

Armed with artist impressions of a large health precinct on the campus of the Australian National University near Civic, major public health bodies, the ACT government, ACT independent senator David Pocock, and the ANU are urging the federal government to choose a Canberra base over potentially Melbourne due to links to government, the public service, and the need for "neutral ground".

An Australian CDC, based on the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) to respond and prepare for public health emergencies, became a key Labor response to the COVID-19 pandemic. An interim ACDC quietly began operations within the Department of Health on January 1, with Australia's chief medical officer Professor Paul Kelly as temporary head and initial funding of $90 million.

Canberra-backing voices, which also includes the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, are stressing independence from government and interstate rivalries, no bias, and a reasonable hurry-on.

"Ultimately, there's a reason Canberra was created," the chief executive of Public Health Association Australia, Adjunct Professor Terry Slevin told The Canberra Times.

"A lot of the national entities that the CDC needs to cooperate with, whether it's DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs), whether it's the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics), the AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare), working with Treasury, Finance, all of those key central agencies are going to be important for the success of the CDC and it needs to develop those relationships."

"So, as to avoid a Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, whoever-else rivalry, Canberra is a logical home for a national entity. And many of our members have expressed their views to me as well."

And the tough pandemic times can't be forgotten.

"There was tension across jurisdictions, state borders, different approaches from different state governments and the like. And that's baked into our federal system on the states and territories having a lot of power and responsibility in health," Prof Slevin said.

It is understood other ACDC candidate locations include Melbourne and Townsville due to world-class public health and research expertise such as the Burnet Institute and James Cook University.

The ANU last July announced it had paid $16.75 million for an 8600-square-metre site used as a light rail works depot on Marcus Clarke Street in preparation for a world-leading national health precinct. It is negotiating with the federal and ACT governments and had commissioned the artist impressions.

"We would welcome the ACDC to be headquartered in the new precinct and feel there are obvious advantages to doing this," the Dean of the ANU College of Health and Medicine, Prof Russell Gruen, said in a statement.

"The work of the ACDC will be best supported if it can draw on expertise that exists in government, academic institutions, peak bodies, professional organisations, and industry around the country."

It is expected such a local CDC would deal with current communicable disease threats such as COVID-19 and its mutations, Ross River Virus, Japanese encephalitis, and dengue, as well as emerging health threats and chronic disease.

The ACT government wants an ACDC in the ACT and has been in talks with the federal government.

"We are well-placed with a diverse range of Commonwealth government agencies, industry stakeholders and research institutions such as universities. The ACT government has put forward these views to the federal Minister for Health," the ACT Minister for Population Health Emma Davidson said in a statement.

Senator Pocock is backing a Canberra-headed "hub and spoke" model similar to the US experience, stressing capital links to the departments of health, prime minister and cabinet, and home affairs, as well as embassies and high commissions.

"I think it's only really going to be effective through a hub and spoke model where you do have a presence in every state and territory and you'll potentially find that a state or territory may have a specialist focus as part of the CDC that's then feeding into the sort of central hub," he said.

"But I think it's critical for coordination that it is here in Canberra.

"We saw what happened in COVID. The need for decisions to be made quickly, for information to be able to be shared with government, with various department heads, and then with our international partners."

Reflecting on the pandemic experience, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia said Canberra was a natural choice for the coordination of national responses.

"If we were to have an event like that again, then going into a community pharmacy sit well within that," Simon Blacker, the head of the ACT branch of the guild, said.

"Community pharmacists and pharmacies are well distributed it across Australia including the ACT. And as we did in the pandemic, we kept our doors open and we will provide a critical on-the-ground infrastructure where the people can access health advice and we can help manage a public health response."

The proximity to Defence in the national capital is also highlighted.

"You would think that the government are going to use our defence capability in some way to help roll that out immediately," Mr Blacker offered.

Doctors' group, the Australian Medical Association, doesn't have firm position on a permanent ACDC location, but ACT AMA president, Prof Walter Abhayaratna, said there were merits for a Canberra hub.

The AMA wants the government to get moving on the CDC, stressing consultation with expertise around the nation, independence for the final body, and a remit to cover both communicable and non-communicable diseases.

"Yes, we had a terrible pandemic, and will those who've lived through it, will never forget it. But the growth in disease burden is very much chronic disease," Prof Abhayaratna said.

"And the question really is, well, how can we get the expertise within a CDC that is independent, that is able to tap into these experts around the country on non-communicable diseases to be able to inform government and policy."

He urged some speed on the Australian CDC to get some coherence back into decision-making.

"We really are at a situation where the current government arrangements are not fit-for-purpose for certain chronic diseases," the AMA ACT president said.

"It is important we hurry up on this because we've got so many challenges now in terms of policy for financing better healthcare systems."

The Canberra Times also sought comment from federal Health Minister Mark Butler.

"No decisions have been made on the final location for an Australian CDC. This will be a decision of government and will involve consideration of the various operating models currently being explored," a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Aged Care said in a statement.