Securitization as a mechanism in Australia's biosecurity lawmaking and disease response

Abstract

Four years into a global pandemic of COVID-19, the threat that infectious diseases and public health emergencies present to human prosperity and individual and community wellbeing is clear to all. While the response to COVID-19 saw the use of exceptional public health measures, the regulatory basis for these measures did not emerge from a vacuum, with many of the regulatory levers present in Australia prior to the pandemic.

Pandemics have been a longstanding concern of government and non-government actors and officials and lawmakers have adopted regulatory measures designed to prepare for and, if possible, mitigate the risk from, infectious diseases. Existing literature, particularly within the security studies field, has centred a trilogy of 'biosecurity' issues that such measures seek to respond to: bioterrorism, emerging and remerging infectious diseases, and 'dual-use' pathogen research. Academics, health practitioners and humanitarian organisations alike, have expressed concern that the 'securitization of health' implicit in the concept of 'biosecurity' risks distorting regulatory responses and priorities, and creating space for 'exceptionalism' and norm violation.

Drawing on the Copenhagen School's theory of 'securitization', and the insights of Braithwaite and Drahos (2000) on the mechanisms for the globalisation of rules and principles, this thesis adopts a case study research design to assess the role of securitization as a 'mechanism' in the development of biosecurity legislation and pandemic response measures in Australia. Cases examined include legislation and policymaking responding to fears in the mid-2000s about a hypothetical avian influenza pandemic in humans and post-2001 concerns about bioterrorism and dual-use research. Australia's response to the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic and 2013-16 West Africa Ebola outbreak are also explored.

The study identifies multiple instances of securitization in Australia's pandemic preparedness law and policymaking. Securitization also features, in unexpected ways, in disease response. Novel findings from this study include a lack of genuine contestation between key legislative actors, and the use of hidden or implied threats and referent objects, for example the Australia-US security alliance. Likewise, this study found that superficially positive terms such as 'proportionality' were often deployed in aid of efforts to securitize a topic or profession, such as researchers.

The significance of this study is its detailed analysis of the presence and use of security discourse in the development of biosecurity legislation and health measures. Its strength also arises from the use of multiple methods to examine and critique the analytical attention that security analysts commonly place on Ministers and public fora, offering a deeper examination of the role of public servants in deploying securitizing moves.

Australia and the world are now moving to manage COVID-19 as an endemic disease. This transition will involve reflecting on what happened during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how the world can prepare for the next health emergency. It is hoped the thicker understanding this thesis provides of how Australia's pre-COVID-19 regulatory settings came to be, will support the development of future regulation and health measures that are clear-eyed as to the risks - and possible benefits - of securitizing disease. Show more