Omicron would be considered a public health emergency in the ACT regardless of whether proposed COVID-19 management laws are in place.
The ACT government's proposed public health amendment bill would give the government and health authorities the power to make public health directions related to COVID outside of a public health emergency.
But Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said the current Omicron wave was an emergency and would likely not be able to be managed by the planned COVID-specific laws.
Ms Stephen-Smith told an inquiry into the proposed laws on Tuesday afternoon that the new laws provided a balance for "living with COVID".
"If we get back to the point where we really want to get to living with COVID in a more normalised environment, and we don't think as a community that an emergency declaration is justifiable, we will not be able to have in place the low level, [test, trace, isolate and quarantine] and public health social measures, and potentially very limited vaccination mandates, that we would require to do that ... outside of a public health emergency," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
Under the current public health act, the chief health officer can only make declarations related to quarantine, density limits, mask mandates or vaccine mandates if there is a public health emergency.
But the proposed amendments would allow these directions to be made in relation to COVID-19 once emergency powers have ceased. Some responsibility for these powers would also be shifted from the chief health officer to government ministers.
ACT authorities would still have the power to declare a public health emergency in relation to COVID if the bill passed.
The new powers have drawn ire from the Australian Hotels Association's ACT branch, with general manager Anthony Brierley questioning the necessity of the bill and expressing fears over a "shadow lockdown".
An overwhelming majority of submissions to the inquiry are against the bill, mostly from people who have expressed anti-vaccine views and concerns over vaccine mandates.
The ACT reported 552 new COVID-19 cases on Monday. There are 64 people in hospital with COVID-19 and one in intensive care who is being ventilated.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr was also at the hearing, and was asked about income support measures. He said the Commonwealth should offer further support to people who are unable to work due to COVID-related reasons, but added it was not possible to expect governments to pay businesses every time there was a downturn.
However, the Chief Minister did pose the suggestion of a HECS-style loan scheme for businesses, saying it might be worth debating.
"Perhaps if we went down the path of HECS-style business loans that were provided in the down times but repaid in full with interest in the good times, there is your intellectual public policy debate to be had around how you might balance this," he said.
"At this point, I think that would be an administratively complex solution to a particular challenge that we are facing at the moment."
