28
APRIL 2020
PDF version [374KB]
Karen
Elphick
Law and Bills Digest Section
|
This is one of three Library publications that outline
emergency and pandemic planning arrangements that were in place prior to
2020, and actual arrangements established in 2020 to coordinate the national
response to COVID-19.
- National emergency and disaster response arrangements in Australia:
a quick guide explains the overarching decision-making framework designed
to manage crisis events of all kinds.
- Australian pandemic response planning: a quick guide outlines
the standing health emergency plans that were in place prior to the advent of
COVID-19 in 2020, including the National Pandemic Influenza Plan.
- Australian COVID-19 response management arrangements: a quick guide
(this publication) explains the specific decision-making and advisory bodies
involved in the national COVID-19 response, as at April 2020.
|
Table of Contents
Overview
Standing
national health crisis management and response arrangements
Figure 1:
whole-of-government, health sector, and health advisory committees involved in
decision making for an influenza pandemic
Lead
minister for response and recovery
Key
considerations for response
Specific
COVID-19 pandemic management and response arrangements
The
COVID-19 health sector response plan
Table 1:
Key activities in each of the COVID-19 Plan stages
Response
plan activation
Health sector
decision making and advisory bodies
Australian
Health Protection Principal Committee
National
Incident Room
Declaration
of human biosecurity emergency
Whole-of-government
decision making and advisory bodies
National
Security Committee of Cabinet|
Council of
Australian Governments (COAG)
The
National Cabinet
National
Crisis Committee
National
Coordination Mechanism
Crisis
Coordination Centre
National
COVID-19 Coordination Commission
Australian
Parliament
Overview
Each Australian state and territory has generic emergency
and disaster response legislation which authorises officials to declare
emergencies in a variety of circumstances and make orders to deal with an
emergency. The Commonwealth does not have specific legislative power to deal
with emergencies and has not enacted equivalent generic legislation.
Whole-of-government arrangements have been developed that
are designed to be applicable in any emergency or crisis. These arrangements
are described in the Parliamentary Library’s publication National
Emergency and Disaster Response Arrangements in Australia: a Quick Guide.
Within these arrangements are specific standing arrangements for dealing with
public health crises including pandemics.
This Quick Guide explains these arrangements, setting out
the decision-making and advisory bodies that implement the various crisis and
pandemic plans. In each section, the Guide uses ‘Commonwealth government’ and ‘Australian
government’ interchangeably while ‘national’ refers to Commonwealth, state and
territory governments and agencies. Some bodies within the framework comprise elected
political leaders (for example, Cabinet) and others comprise officials. Some of
the actions and decisions taken by these bodies are given to illustrate their
roles, but this Quick Guide is not a chronology of government action taken in
response to COVID-19.
Standing
national health crisis management and response arrangements
Australia has a series of standing health emergency plans,
ordered from high level policy down to operational detail. The standing plans
dealing specifically with pandemic response are described in the Parliamentary
Library’s publication Australian
Pandemic Response Planning: a Quick Guide. The main standing response
plans for a pandemic are:
The planned response to a national public health crisis
involves action by the whole-of-government in parallel to the health sector. The
Australian
Government Crisis Management Framework (December 2017) (AGCMF) identifies
the planned decision making framework for response to, and recovery from, any
crisis event. Annex A.7 to the AGCMF sets out the standing response
arrangements for a public health crisis. These arrangements are illustrated in Figure
1.
Figure 1: whole-of-government,
health sector, and health advisory committees involved in decision making for
an influenza pandemic
Source: Australian Health Management Plan for
Pandemic Influenza–AHPPMI, (August 2019), p. 34.
The whole-of-government
arrangements are to be applied to:
A domestic public health incident that requires a whole-of-government response. Examples may
include an influenza pandemic or a serious infectious disease outbreak. (AGCMF
p. 46)
While these are the standing arrangements, they are
designed to be the starting point for any response, to be adjusted as required.
Lead minister
for response and recovery
In a public health crisis the designated lead minister for
response and recovery is the Minister for Health and the lead agency is the
Department of Health. The designated lead senior official is the Chief Medical
Officer (CMO) and the key whole-of-government coordination mechanisms
are:
- Australian Government Crisis
Committee
- National Crisis Committee
- Australian Government Disaster Recovery Committee
- Australian Cyber Security Centre
The Australian
Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) is a key health sector
coordination mechanism that provides advice to whole-of-government crisis
committees.
The AGCMF anticipates a central role for the Prime Minister
as the chief spokesperson in a significant national crisis and the involvement
of other ministers as required, with the response coordinated from the Prime
Minister’s Office (AGCMF, p. 14).
Key
considerations for response
The key considerations for the Minister for Health in
responding to the public health crisis are:
- advising the Governor-General on the declaration of a human
biosecurity emergency under Part 2, Chapter 8 of the Biosecurity Act 2015
- determining requirements and issuing directions during a human
biosecurity emergency
- shaping the direction of response to a health incident of
national significance, as necessary
- implementing health measures, as appropriate
- developing assistance packages to assist with recovery efforts,
as required
- seeking advice from the Minister for Agriculture and Water
Resources in the event of food-borne disease crises linked to imported food, as
necessary.
The Minister for Home Affairs has the role of responding to
requests from states and territories for Australian Government non- financial
assistance under COMDISPLAN arrangements as required (in consultation with
relevant ministers) (AGCMF, p. 46).
The Minister for Foreign Affairs has a role to coordinate
reception of Australians and other approved persons into Australia where there
is an overseas mass casualty event or an evacuation from overseas is otherwise
necessary.
Specific COVID-19
pandemic management and response arrangements
On 21 January 2020 the CMO issued a
determination adding ‘human coronavirus with pandemic potential’ to the Biosecurity (Listed
Human Diseases) Determination 2016. This decision triggered the activation
of the National Incident Room, the National Medical Stockpile, and the National
Trauma Centre, daily meetings of the AHPPC, and meetings of state, territory
and Commonwealth health ministers to discuss pandemic readiness.
The COVID-19 health sector response plan
The Australian
Health Sector Emergency Response Plan for Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)
(7 February 2020) (COVID-19 Plan) adapts the Pandemic Influenza
Plan to specifically manage the national COVID-19 response. The COVID-19 Plan
is intended to be a living document which will be periodically updated. The
Plan is focussed on the Response phase and moves through Initial Action
to Targeted Action and then to Standdown. The stages are
summarised in Table 1.
Table 1: Key activities in each of the COVID-19 Plan stages
|
STAGES
|
ACTIVITIES
|
|
ACTION
|
Initial (when information about the disease is scarce)
- Minimise transmission
- Prepare and support health system needs
- Manage initial cases and contacts
- Identify and characterise the nature of the disease within the
Australian context
- Provide information to support best practice health care and to
empower the community and responders to manage their own risk of exposure and
- Confirm and support effective governance arrangements
|
|
Targeted (when enough is known about the disease to
tailor measures to specific needs)
- Ensure a proportionate response
- Support and maintain quality care
- Communicate to engage, empower and build confidence in the community
and
- Provide a coordinated and consistent approach
|
|
STANDDOWN
|
- Support and maintain quality care
- Cease activities that are no longer needed, and transition
activities to normal business or interim arrangements
- Monitor for a second wave of the outbreak
- Monitor for the development of resistance to any pharmaceutical
measures (if being used)
- Communicate to support the return from emergency response to
normal business services and
- Evaluate systems and revise plans and procedures.
|
Source: Australian Health Sector Emergency
Response Plan for Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), pp. 2–3.
An official short
form of the COVID-19 Plan (undated) has been published. Two operational
plans for specific at-risk populations have also been developed by the
Department of Health and endorsed by the AHPPC:
Response
plan activation
At the request of the CMO, on 25 January 2020 the
Australian Government activated the National CD Plan. The AHPPC
endorsed the COVID-19
Plan sometime from 17-26 February 2020 (sources contain conflicting dates). The
National
Security Committee of Cabinet agreed and initiated implementation of the COVID-19
Plan on 27 February 2020.
There is a detailed table setting out the respective roles
and responsibilities of the Australian Government, state and territory governments
and the health sector during the Response stage in ‘Attachment I.
Governance Table’ at pages 214–229 of the Pandemic Influenza Plan.
As part of the COVID-19 response, the Government announced
on 11 March 2020 that the supply of personal protective equipment and
pharmaceuticals held in the National Medical Stockpile would
be increased at a cost of $1.1 billion.
Health sector
decision making and advisory bodies
The COVID-19 Response Plan makes the Australian Department
of Health responsible for national coordination of the health sector emergency
response, under the direction of the AHPPC.
Australian
Health Protection Principal Committee
The AHPPC is the key committee coordinating the Australian
health sector response. It comprises all state and territory Chief Health
Officers and is chaired by the CMO. More detail about the membership of the
AHPPC can be found at pages 14–15 of the National CD Plan. The AHPPC is
publishing frequent statements
on Coronavirus (COVID-19) with advice on risk reduction measures, treatment
protocols, and modelling, along with other information and advice.
The AHPPC also provides advice to whole-of-government
bodies, the National Cabinet and the National Coordination Mechanism (their
roles are discussed below).
National
Incident Room
The National
Incident Room is a 24/7 communication and coordination centre within the
Department of Health activated in response to national health emergencies. It was
activated on 21 January 2020 for the COVID-19 pandemic response. The main activities conducted in the National Incident
Room include:
- servicing the emergency meetings of the AHPPC, and other expert
health committees
- providing technical advice to committees and government
- gathering information to assist health and whole-of-government
response decisions
- coordinating the deployment of the National Medical Stockpile
- keeping the community informed of the health related aspects of
the emergency through the media
- implementing health aspects of Commonwealth disaster plans
- coordinating medical response teams domestically and
internationally
- liaison with emergency management sectors in other Commonwealth
and state/territory government agencies.
Declaration
of human biosecurity emergency
On 18 March 2020 the Governor-General declared, pursuant
to section 475 of the Biosecurity Act
2015, that a human biosecurity emergency exists because human
coronavirus with pandemic potential is an infectious disease:
- that has entered Australian territory and
- that is fatal in some cases and
- that there was no vaccine against, or antiviral treatment for,
immediately before the commencement of this instrument and
- that is posing a severe and immediate threat to human health on a
nationally significant scale.[1]
The declaration is in force for three months.
In a human biosecurity emergency, the Health Minister has
wide-ranging powers under the Biosecurity Act to issue directives and
requirements. The Parliamentary Library has published an explainer
on how these powers work and how they have been used.
Whole-of-government
decision making and advisory bodies
On 1 February 2020, the Prime Minister, the Minister for
Foreign Affairs, the Minister for Home Affairs and the Minister for Health
issued a joint
media release advising that the National Security Committee of Cabinet (NSC)
had decided, based on health advice from the CMO and AHPPC, to introduce strict
travel restrictions on the entry to Australia of foreign nationals who were, on
that date, in mainland China. Self-isolation measures were also introduced and
travel warnings upgraded. Whole-of-government responses agreed during February
2020 included:
National
Security Committee of Cabinet
The National
Security Committee of Cabinet (NSC) is a committee of the Australian
Government Cabinet. It considers major foreign policy and national security
issues of strategic importance to Australia, border protection policy, national
responses to developing foreign policy and security situations. Decisions of
the NSC do not require the endorsement of the Cabinet.
The NSC continued to meet and agree to further responses to
the pandemic throughout February. On 5 March 2020, the Prime Minister, the
Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Health issued a joint media
release advising that the National Security Committee of Cabinet had activated
the National Coordination Mechanism
(NCM) (discussed below) on 5 March 2020 in response to the spread of
COVID-19.
Council of
Australian Governments (COAG)
The Council
of Australian Governments (COAG) is the peak intergovernmental forum in
Australia. Its role is to manage matters of national significance or matters
that need co-ordinated action by all Australian governments. The members
of COAG are the Prime Minister, state and territory First Ministers and
the President of the Australian Local Government Association. COAG is chaired
by the Prime Minister.
COAG held its 48th general meeting in Sydney on 13 March
2020. The Communique
from that meeting summarised national action in response to the COVID-19
outbreak to date and noted:
COAG agreed to commission real-time, transparent protocols,
underpinned by advice from the AHPPC and working through the National
Coordination Mechanism, to support a consistent approach to containment and
preparedness for coronavirus. These protocols will include management of mass
gatherings, school closures, health management in remote communities and public
transport, with decisions on applying the protocols resting with states and
territories. COAG further agreed that the AHPPC advice will have the status of
COAG advice, and to implement and follow the advice, as necessary.
While coronavirus is first and foremost a health crisis, it
is having significant economic impacts... All Australian governments will play
their part in delivering complementary, targeted and proportionate responses to
the economic impacts of coronavirus. Leaders noted presentations from the
Governor of the Reserve Bank and the Secretary of the Australian Treasury, and
accepted advice that current fiscal settings in jurisdictions should be
adjusted to mitigate the economic impact on Australians and best position the
nation for recovery.
COAG also published the National
Partnership on COVID-19 Response, an intergovernmental agreement under
which the Commonwealth Government will provide financial assistance to the
states and territories for the additional costs incurred by state health services
in responding to the COVID-19 outbreak. The agreement states in part:
In entering this Agreement, the Commonwealth and the States
and Territories (the States) recognise that they have a joint responsibility to
act to protect the Australian community by ensuring that the health system can
respond effectively to the outbreak of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19).
The Commonwealth and States commit to working together to
respond to the outbreak of COVID-19 and minimise the risk to the people of
Australia and keep the community safe, in line with existing government
responsibilities for the health system.
The Commonwealth and States will respond to the outbreak
through the Australian
Health Sector Emergency Response Plan for Novel Coronavirus [COVID-19
Response Plan], the broader healthcare sector and existing mechanisms including
the National
Health Reform Agreement, as amended by the 2017
Addendum of the NHRA and the 2020-21 to 2024-25 Addendum to the NHRA
once in operation.
The National
Cabinet
The Prime Minister initiated a new body called the National
Cabinet to coordinate action between the Australian and state governments
for the COVID-19 response. The National Cabinet held its first
meeting on 15 March 2020. At that meeting it agreed to adopt the advice of
the AHPPC and implement the first social distancing measures across Australia.
The National Cabinet has continued to meet and discuss
policy responses and coordinate national action. The National Cabinet does not
issue minutes or communiques; however, the Prime Minister usually briefs the
media on outcomes shortly after the meeting.
While the necessity for a National Cabinet instead of the
existing COAG framework has not been explained by the Government, it is likely
that the National Cabinet is a more responsive and flexible policy discussion body
than the formal intergovernmental collaboration body (with its own Councils and secretariat) which
COAG has become over time. COAG
usually meets only twice a year, though it is able to meet when needed, and
settles issues out-of-session by correspondence.
The National Cabinet appears to have the same membership as
COAG except that the President of the Australian Local Government Association
is not included. Although named a ‘cabinet’, it is an intergovernmental forum.
Prime Minister Morrison stated at a press
conference in Sydney on 15 March 2020:
I want to thank the premiers and the chief ministers for
their support in bringing together this national cabinet. It has now been
established formally under the Commonwealth government's cabinet guidelines.
And it has the status of a meeting of Cabinet that would exist at a federal
level, as does the meetings of the AHPPC and the national coordinating
mechanism, which is feeding up into those arrangements.
It is likely that the Prime Minister was referring to the Cabinet
Handbook which sets out administrative and record-keeping requirements and
processes. For example, section one identifies the roles of the Cabinet
Secretary and Cabinet Division; section three identifies processes including
circulation of minutes; and section six deals with the security and handling of
cabinet documents. Section two contains Cabinet conventions and principles,
most of which could have no application to an intergovernmental forum composed
of First Ministers of independent governments rather than Commonwealth
ministers.
National
Crisis Committee
The National Crisis Committee (NCC) is the key national,
cross-government committee of officials identified in standing response plans.
It will consolidate information and coordinate information exchange and advice
to ministers. It will also coordinate ministerial decisions across the
Australian Government, state and territory and local governments. The NCC
membership includes Australian Government Crisis Committee standing members;
state and territory agency representatives as appropriate to the event; and
state and territory representatives from the departments of Premier and Cabinet
(and equivalents). The Australian Government Crisis Committee is an exclusively
Commonwealth government interagency coordination committee.
The Pandemic Influenza Plan designates the National Crisis
Committee (NCC) as the primary national cross-government forum for coordinating
the whole-of-government response to pandemic influenza.
National Coordination
Mechanism
The NCM is not mentioned in any of the available response
plans. The role of the NCM appears to be very similar to that envisaged for the
NCC. A 2013
Cabinet document briefing incoming ministers on their responsibilities
addressed emergency arrangements; at page 33 the document refers to the NCC as
the National coordination mechanism (in contrast to the Australian Government
Crisis Committee which is the Australian Government coordination mechanism). It
is likely that the National Crisis Committee has been renamed.
The NCM will coordinate engagement through individual forums
with individual sectors, such as education, public safety and policing,
banking, transport, food, and agriculture. It will operate through the
Department of Home Affairs and, together with the states and territories, will
coordinate the whole-of-government responses to issues outside the direct
health management of COVID-19. The NCM
has already brought together crisis planners from Australian Government
agencies, including Home Affairs and the Australian Defence Force.
Crisis
Coordination Centre
The key national operational level, whole-of-government
coordination body is the Crisis Coordination Centre (CCC). This is a
24/7 centre providing whole-of-government situational awareness to inform
national decision making during a crisis. The Crisis Coordination Centre is run
by the Emergency Management Australia Division (EMA) within the Security
and Resilience Group of the Department of Home Affairs. It monitors
open source as well as social media to gain an appreciation of rapidly
developing events.
Requests for Commonwealth non-financial assistance
(including requests for Australian Defence Force assistance) are coordinated
through the CCC.
National
COVID-19 Coordination Commission
On 25 March 2020 the Prime
Minister announced the formation of a new advisory body – the National
COVID-19 Coordination Commission (NCCC) – to be based in the Department
of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and composed of leaders from the profit and
non-profit sectors. The NCCC Executive Board of Commissioners are Neville Power
(Chair), David Thodey (Deputy Chair), Greg Combet, Jane Halton, Paul Little,
Catherine Tanna, and the Secretaries of the Departments of the Prime Minister
and Cabinet, Philip Gaetjens and of Home Affairs, Mike Pezzullo.
The function
of the NCCC is to ‘coordinate advice to the Australian Government on
actions to anticipate and mitigate the economic and social effects of the ... pandemic’.
The NCCC:
... is about mobilising a whole-of-society and whole-of economy
effort so we come through this unprecedented health crisis. The Commission will
assist the Government to ensure all resources are marshalled to this vital task
in a coordinated and effective manner.
The NCCC supports the decision-making committees managing
the crisis including the National Cabinet, the National Security Committee of
Cabinet and the Expenditure Review Committee of Cabinet. The NCCC will work in
tandem with the CMO. Both the NCM (based in the Department of Home Affairs) and
the Coronavirus Business Liaison Unit (based in the Treasury Department) report
to the NCCC.
The NCCC appears to be fulfilling at least some of the
functions of an Australian Government Disaster Recovery Committee and may be
the specific manifestation of that committee for the COVID-19 response.
Australian
Parliament
While many of the initial responses to the COVID-19 pandemic
were executive actions or implemented by state and territory legislation,
Commonwealth legislation was required to implement planned Government spending
measures.
On 23 March 2020, the Australian Parliament (with attendance
of members reduced by agreement between the Government and Opposition), met
briefly to pass the Coronavirus
Economic Response Package Omnibus Bill 2020. Parliament met again for one
day on 8 April 2020, again with attendance reduced by agreement, to pass the Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Payments and Benefits)
Bill 2020, the Coronavirus Economic Response Package Omnibus (Measures No. 2)
Bill 2020, Appropriation
Bill (No. 5) 2019-2020 and Appropriation
Bill (No. 6) 2019-2020.
[1].
Biosecurity
(Human Biosecurity Emergency) (Human Coronavirus with Pandemic Potential)
Declaration 2020.
For copyright reasons some linked items are only available to members of Parliament.
© Commonwealth of Australia
Creative Commons
With the exception of the Commonwealth
Coat of Arms, and to the extent that copyright subsists in a third party,
this publication, its logo and front page design are licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia licence.
In essence, you are free to copy and
communicate this work in its current form for all non-commercial purposes, as
long as you attribute the work to the author and abide by the other licence
terms. The work cannot be adapted or modified in any way. Content from this
publication should be attributed in the following way: Author(s), Title of
publication, Series Name and No, Publisher, Date.
To the extent that copyright subsists
in third party quotes it remains with the original owner and permission may
be required to reuse the material.
Inquiries regarding the licence and
any use of the publication are welcome to webmanager@aph.gov.au.
Disclaimer: Bills Digests are prepared to support the work of the Australian Parliament.
They are produced under time and resource constraints and aim to be available
in time for debate in the Chambers. The views expressed in Bills Digests do
not reflect an official position of the Australian Parliamentary Library, nor
do they constitute professional legal opinion. Bills Digests reflect the
relevant legislation as introduced and do not canvass subsequent amendments
or developments. Other sources should be consulted to determine the official
status of the Bill.
Any concerns or complaints should be
directed to the Parliamentary Librarian. Parliamentary Library staff are
available to discuss the contents of publications with Senators and Members
and their staff. To access this service, clients may contact the author or
the Library’s Central Enquiry Point for referral.