History of Australia’s quarantine framework
The Australian Constitution includes a power for the Commonwealth Parliament to make laws with respect to
‘quarantine’ in section
51(ix). The High Court has never characterised the extent of the quarantine
power, making its exact limits and nature uncertain. The Commonwealth’s
quarantine laws have, however, always included powers to take extraordinary
emergency measures to prevent outbreaks of disease, used for the first time in
1913, when the Commonwealth
quarantined Sydney in response to a smallpox outbreak.
The states and self-governing territories each have
their own
legislative frameworks providing for similarly broad emergency powers in
response to outbreaks of disease and have had such frameworks since before
federation. The line between the Commonwealth’s power to legislate with respect
to quarantine and the states’ power to legislate with respect to public health
is not clear, but it is likely that there are at least some elements of
pandemic response that are outside the Commonwealth’s constitutional
capabilities, requiring intergovernmental cooperation.
After both the 1913
smallpox epidemic, and the Spanish
flu pandemic, efforts were made to create a durable pandemic management
framework that would prevent a break down in inter‑governmental
coordination. In both cases, these
efforts failed. The November 1913 conference between Commonwealth and state
chief medical officers recommended that in
the future, measures be:
… agreed on by the parties in common, not during the
operation of restraint and restrictions, and political or other influences, but
in circumstances which all the authorities concerned are in the same position
with respect to the health requirements and the subjects considered.
The 1913 conference preceded the November
1918 conference that attempted to coordinate Australia’s response to the
Spanish flu pandemic, and the National Cabinet framework
that was established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following the Spanish flu pandemic, the
Commonwealth created
the Department of Health to coordinate future pandemic management, and
expanded Commonwealth legislative provisions related to pandemic management through
the passage
of amendments to the then Quarantine Act 1908.
Over the following century, however, the Department of Health’s focus shifted
away from pandemic management, and the Commonwealth’s quarantine framework
became progressively more focused on plant and animal biosecurity rather than
infectious human diseases.
The 1997 Nairn Review noted:
… the strong quarantine focus on human health in the early
part of the twentieth century is now overshadowed by the focus on animals and
plants of agricultural importance … [p. 30]
In 2008 the Rudd
Government reviewed the Australian biosecurity and quarantine framework in
response to perceived failures of quarantine that lead to the 2007 equine
influenza outbreak. The Beale Review recommended that the Quarantine Act 1908 be completely replaced by a new
Biosecurity Act, which eventually became the Biosecurity Act
2015 (Biosecurity Act).
This history highlights the challenges of creating
and maintaining a fit for purpose, capable national pandemic management
framework following a pandemic as a framework may go decades or generations relatively
unchanged before its full capacity is needed again.
The human biosecurity emergency powers
To enable swift responses, the Commonwealth and
each of the states have always had legislation delegating a broad power to the
Executive Government to respond to outbreaks of infectious disease without
requiring further scrutiny from parliaments. Currently, at a Commonwealth
level, these are provided for in the Biosecurity Act.
Chapter 8 of the Biosecurity Act provides
the legislative framework for the human biosecurity powers. Relevant
powers under the Biosecurity Act can only be used in relation to ‘listed human diseases’.The
Minister for Health may advise the Governor-General to declare a human
biosecurity emergency if they are satisfied that a listed human disease is
‘posing a severe and immediate threat or is causing harm on a nationally
significant scale’ and that the declaration is necessary to address the
situation.
Once a human biosecurity emergency is declared, the
minister may make human biosecurity requirements and directions that they are
satisfied are necessary and proportionate to address the
emergency. HBE requirements and directions override any other Australian law
and cannot be disallowed by Parliament.
An HBE declaration can only last for a maximum of
3 months but can be extended an indefinite number of times provided the
Health Minister remains satisfied it is still necessary to address the human
biosecurity emergency (which is what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic).
Failure to comply with an HBE direction or requirement is a criminal
offence, punishable by up to 5 years imprisonment or a $66,600 fine, or
both.
There were challenges to the validity of exercises
of the HBE powers over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, notably Newman
v Minister for Health and Aged Care, which concerned the validity of
the India
Travel Pause Determination and LibertyWorks
Inc v Commonwealth of Australia, which concerned the validity of the Overseas
Travel Ban Determination. In both cases, the Federal Court reaffirmed the
validity of the determinations, dismissing the challenges. To date, no judicial
challenge to the validity an exercise of the HBE powers has been successful.
Issues regarding the operation of the HBE powers
More broadly, pandemics and epidemics present challenges,
including:
- an effective public health response to outbreaks or incursions of
serious diseases frequently requires measures to be taken swiftly
- such measures often involve the abrogation or suspension of regular
laws, and the limitation of common law and human rights of persons
- such outbreaks are irregular and may be very infrequent
- decision-makers operate in environments of high uncertainty,
particularly regarding novel diseases of which the epidemiology (rate of
reproduction, vectors of transmission, mortality rate, chronic conditions
resulting) is not yet known
- given the varied epidemiology and seriousness of potential
outbreaks, the scope of powers needed for an effective public health response
cannot be known before time
- the existence of the outbreak may constrain the ability of Parliament
to meet to review, extend, or alter the powers granted to the Executive, or
grant such powers if a legislative scheme does not already exist.
- the consequences of an inadequate or slow public health response can
be catastrophic to human life, economic, social and cultural wellbeing. The
consequences of an excessive public health response can be substantial in
financial, social, and human rights terms.
These challenges reflect the rationale as to why
the HBE powers confer such broad powers on the minister to respond to an
outbreak, including to modify and override existing Acts of Parliament. Professor
George Williams described the HBE powers as ‘one
of the most remarkable provisions on the statute book’.
During the pandemic 4 key issues emerged surrounding
the HBE powers:
- the fact that HBE declarations, extensions, and requirements cannot
be disallowed by Parliament (ss
475(2), ss
476(2), ss
477(2))
- the fact that HBE requirements and directions can override any Australian
law, a provision known as a ‘Henry
VIII clause’, including in ways that abrogate common law rights (ss 477(5),
ss 478(4)).
- the capacity of the minister to apply the HBE powers to policy areas
not directly related to infection control via the broad constitutional basis of
the Biosecurity Act
- the lack of clarity about how the HBE powers interreact with state
public health frameworks.
Reviews and policy proposals for reform
There have been several proposals for reforms of
the HBE framework:
- In
its final report the Senate Select Committee on COVID-19 recommended that a
‘Royal Commission be established to examine Australia’s response to the
COVID-19 pandemic to inform preparedness for future COVID-19 waves and future
pandemics’ (Recommendation 17).
- The Senate Select Committee on COVID-19 also
recommended the establishment of a Australian Centre for Disease Control (Recommendation 1). Labor
promised to action this recommendation as an election commitment, to
‘ensure ongoing pandemic preparedness’ and ‘lead the federal response to future
infectious disease outbreaks’ as
did the Australian Greens.
- The Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated
Legislation recommended that the declaration and extension of a Human Biosecurity
Emergency declaration, and the making and varying of HBE requirements, be
subject to parliamentary disallowance. Amendments
to that effect were moved
on behalf of the committee in the Senate to the Biosecurity
Amendment (Enhanced Risk Management) Bill 2021, which lapsed at the end of
the 46th Parliament.
- There has not been a review of the human biosecurity emergency
powers generally during the pandemic. Elements of the human biosecurity
emergency framework were considered by the NSW
Special Commission of Inquiry and the Inspector-General
of Biosecurity in their separate reviews into the Ruby Princess incident, but these did not focus on the HBE powers.
In responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, Australian federal
and state governments were required to make urgent decisions, while developing
policy in an ever-evolving situation. Future reviews of the governments’
responses are likely to consider if these powers were appropriately configured
to meet these challenges – if it had the correct decision-makers, processes,
limits, and systems of parliamentary oversight – with an eye to the next
pandemic.
Further reading
Senate Select Committee on COVID-19, Final Report (Canberra: The Senate, April 2022).
Howard Maclean and Karen Elphick, ‘COVID-19 Legislative Response- Human Biosecurity Emergency Declaration Explainer’, FlagPost (blog), Parliamentary Library, 19 March 2020 (updated 27 March 2020).
Howard Maclean, ‘Biosecurity Amendment (Enhanced Risk Management) Bill 2021’ Bills Digest, 30, 2021–22, (Canberra: Parliamentary Library, 2021).
Howard Maclean ‘In 1913 the Commonwealth Quarantined Sydney for 145 days‘, FlagPost (blog), Parliamentary Library, 27 July 2021.