Queensland’s human rights commissioner has warned the state’s lawmakers a “vacuum of oversight” could undermine public faith crucial to responding to future pandemics should they extend the chief health officer emergency powers.
Commissioner Scott McDougall told a parliamentary committee on Monday it should reject the Palaszczuk government’s move to extend those powers by another six months and instead replace the temporary measures with “fit-for-purpose, pandemic legislation” that was “transparent, accountable and more compatible with human rights”.
The state’s health minister, Yvette D’Ath, is seeking to extend the temporary powers, introduced in January 2020, through to the end of October.
McDougall said the state should “follow the lead” of Victoria and the ACT and allow for greater transparency and parliamentary oversight of the decision to grant emergency powers.
“At present, confusion over whether or not the CHO’s public health directions are legislative or administrative in nature means that they exist in a potential vacuum of oversight,” he said.
Under the Victorian model, the health minister must accompany a declaration of emergency with a statement of reasons, the advice given by the CHO and a statement of compatibility with human rights, McDougall said.
Also, the CHO’s directions were administrative, meaning they would be “disallowable” by parliament.
“That is a really effective and open, transparent model,” the commissioner said.
“We’ve been advocating for something similar to that right from the outset of this pandemic.”
McDougall said the state government had done “an excellent job of keeping Queenslanders safe” throughout the pandemic and acknowledged its “commitment to protecting the right to life”.
But he said the emergency phase of the pandemic was “arguably behind us” or the state was at least “in between emergency phases”, making now the time to lay the legislative groundwork to respond to future waves.
McDougall said the success of the state in handling the pandemic to date had rested upon the confidence of Queenslanders in the decision-making process and the public’s willingness to accept “extraordinary restrictions on their human rights”.
The government, however, could not necessarily count on the same public sentiment during a future wave of the pandemic and the “very tough” decisions that would herald, he warned.
“[D]ecisions are going to have to be made by government [that] are going to be very tough and the appetite of the public to forgo their rights is really going to be tested,” McDougall said.
But clarifying how the Human Rights Act applied to public health directions could help retain the required goodwill.
“That will continue public confidence in decision making that is going to be essential for dealing with future waves of the pandemic,” McDougall said.
Health minister Yvette D’Ath argues the extension of emergency powers is necessary so the state can remain vigilant against the rapid and unpredictable spread of the coronavirus.
She has said the CHO’s ability to issue directions, such as the requirement of quarantine for unvaccinated travellers entering Queensland, would be needed to keep the state safe from future waves and variants.
The president of the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties, Michael Cope, wrote in a submission to parliament that the minister’s argument failed to justify the continuation of emergency powers.
“If it does justify such an extension, it would justify an extension of those powers for so long as the virus is circulating in our community, which given the current state of our medicine will be forever,” he wrote.
“An emergency cannot last forever.”
