By George Christensen
Australia may soon be handing the World Health Organization a master key to our laws.
The Albanese Government has tabled its Australian Centre for Disease Control (CDC) Bills in parliament.
These proposed laws would create a central command agency led by an unelected Director-General who can seize your data, rewrite the rules in a “health emergency,” and lock Australia to the WHO’s Pandemic Treaty agenda.
The WHO’s treaty (also called the Pandemic Agreement) pushes nations to align laws, share data, and follow WHO directions during crises.
The CDC Bills embed the WHO’s “One Health” model, which stretches “public health” into climate, food systems, livestock and land use.
The CDC will be a Trojan Horse: it looks like health protection agency but it smuggles in foreign control and permanent surveillance.
A Senate Committee has been tasked with conducting an inquiry into these dangerous bills. Public submissions to that Senate Committee closed on 26 September 2025.
If we do not hit them hard now, they will quickly vote on it, pass it, and then these bills will become law and be almost impossible to unwind.
There are many reasons why these CDC bills should not be passed by the parliament. They include the fact that the bills allow for:
- Foreign control without a vote: The CDC boss could sign written deals with foreign governments, UN bodies and public-private partnerships. These are not treaties, so Parliament does not vote. WHO policies arrive through the back door.
- Data overrides “despite any other law”: In a declared severe or unforeseen threat, the CDC can authorise collection and disclosure of “relevant information,” including to international recipients, even where other Australian laws would say no. Your information can cross borders when you least expect it.
- WHO plug-in built inside the CDC: The Bills move Australia’s International Health Regulations (IHR) focal-point role into the CDC. That locks the agency onto WHO timelines and notifications, reducing ministerial and parliamentary gatekeeping when Geneva declares a crisis.
- Mission creep by design: One Health treats climate effects, land use, wildlife, livestock, food standards and urban planning as “health.” A climate spike or livestock incident can become the pretext for new directives on your farm, your business, your church and your kids’ school.
- Secrecy when scrutiny is needed most: The CDC must publish some advice, but wide “exempt material” carve-outs and secrecy offences mean the most controversial directions, declarations and foreign arrangements can be withheld.
- Compulsion powers and penalties: Individuals and businesses can be compelled to hand over data, with civil penalties for refusal. This is the architecture for permanent centralised surveillance that can be switched on at the next declaration.
At its core, the CDC Bill takes power away from Australians and hands it to unelected bureaucrats and foreign bodies, stripping our Parliament of control, erasing safeguards on our data and privacy, and opening the door for the WHO to dictate what happens in our homes, our farms, and our daily lives.
You might be asking: Why would they listen to us? Well, politicians fear numbers. Senate committees log the volume first, then read the detail.
Marginal-seat MPs know mandates, censorship and overreach cost votes.
A surge of submissions, signatures and submissions makes this Bill politically radioactive.
When the numbers spike, media silence breaks, talkback lights up and MPs retreat.
We have forced back overreach before. We can do it again here by making the political cost obvious and immediate.
What happens if we win, and if we lose? If we win, the Committee recommends against the Bills, Parliament shelves the CDC plan, and Australia keeps democratic control over health policy, data and international commitments. Informed consent, transparency and proportionality remain non-negotiable.
If we lose, an unelected CDC can trigger restrictions on movement, work, worship and farming off WHO timelines, broaden “health” into climate and food controls, and share Australians’ data across borders in the name of “safety.” Once embedded, these powers will not be repealed easily. Children will grow up thinking emergency rule is normal.
In Solidarity,
George Christensen and the team at CitizenGO,.
P.S. The CDC Bills are the Trojan Horse for the WHO’s Pandemic Treaty in Australia. Stop foreign control and permanent emergency powers at the door.
More information:
“Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill 2025: Bill home page,” Parliament of Australia
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7369
“Australian Centre for Disease Control (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025: Bill home page,” Parliament of Australia
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7372
“Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill 2025 and a related bill: Senate Committee inquiry (submissions close 26 Sept 2025),” Parliament of Australia
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/DiseaseControlBill2025
“Second Reading Speeches: Australian Centre for Disease Control (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025,” Parliament of Australia (Hansard)
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result/Second_Reading_Speeches?BillId=r7372
“AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR DISEASE CONTROL BILL 2025: Full text,” AustLII
https://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/bill/acfdcb2025377/
“AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR DISEASE CONTROL (CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS AND TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS) BILL 2025: Explanatory Memorandum,” AustLII
https://www8.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/bill_em/acfdcaatpb2025919/memo_0.html
“Australian CDC legislation: overview and links to Bills,” Australian Centre for Disease Control (Australian Government)
https://www.cdc.gov.au/about/about-interim-australian-centre-disease-control-cdc/legislation
“Delivering on the Australian Centre for Disease Control,” Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (Media Release)
https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/the-hon-mark-butler-mp/media/cdc-legislation-introduced
“WHO Pandemic Agreement (A78/10): Draft text,” World Health Organization
https://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA78/A78_10-en.pdf
“One Health Initiative: WHO,” World Health Organization
https://www.who.int/teams/one-health-initiative
“One Health Joint Plan of Action (2022–2026): Full document (PDF),” World Health Organization / Quadripartite
https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/363518/9789240059139-eng.pdf
“A guide to implementing the One Health Joint Plan of Action at national level (PDF),” World Health Organization / Quadripartite
https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/374825/9789240082069-eng.pdf
