Transcript

How is health connected to national security? 

What role should the military play in health security – and where are the limits? 

How can Australia improve coordination across agencies before the next crisis arrives? 

In this episode, Sharryn Parker speaks with Esperanza Martinez and Nicholas Thomson about why pathogen preparedness, human security and health need to be understood as part of Australia’s broader security picture. 

Transcript

(This transcript is AI-generated and may contain inaccuracies.) 

Esperanza Martinez   

Is a country that is responding to an outbreak or an epidemic more susceptible, for example, to foreign attack? 

Nick Thomson   

This thinking starting to come through. How do we do it? Well, you do it for a start by having the conversation and you bring these people together, security actors and non-security actors, and you begin. 

National Security Podcast   

You're listening to the National Security Podcast, the show that brings you expert analysis, insights, and opinion on the national security challenges facing Australia and the Indo-Pacific, produced by the ANU National Security College. 

Sharryn Parker   

Welcome to the National Security Podcast. I'm your host, Sharryn Parker. Firstly, it is my privilege to acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the traditional custodians of the Canberra land on which we record today. Infectious disease rarely emerges as a sudden shock. It evolves, often detected too late to prevent escalation. Covid 19 demonstrated that pathogen spread can rapidly devastate communities, disrupt economies, strain governance and expose vulnerabilities across even highly developed nations like Australia. This underscores that when Mother Nature signals risk, she demands sustained attention. Pathogen control is often framed as a public health or social justice issue. However, even in the distant and comfortable Australia, we are not insulated. We are reminded repeatedly that pathogen security is a function of both global systems and national preparedness. This discussion then brings together two complementary perspectives: health and human security as central to stability and resilience, and the practical integration of health into national and regional security policy and practice. Joining me today are Dr Esperanza Martinez from the ANU's National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, and Dr Nicholas Thomson from the School of Pacific Security, also at the ANU. Dr Martinez's work focuses on health and human security as a core component of national and global stability, including through her contributions to major international commissions on health, conflict and crisis settings. Dr Thompson brings together deep expertise on integrating public health into security systems with a particular focus on how these sectors can work together to respond to infectious disease threats. Esperanza and Nick, welcome to the National Security Podcast.  

Esperanza Martinez   

Thank you for having us. 

Nick Thomson   

Indeed, thank you very much. 

Sharryn Parker   

So, let's explore our complimentary questions. Esperanza, can I turn to you first? You state that health should be treated as critical infrastructure. Can you explain for our audience how health is connected to national security? 

Esperanza Martinez   

Thank you very much for that question. And I would like to begin by saying that for decades, we have treated health as separate from security almost intentionally, because there are a number of risks associated in many parts of the world with linking health with militarisation or securitisation, and the fact that health campaigns and vaccination campaigns have been used for military intelligence operations. So it was almost intentional from the health sector to try to keep the two elements separate. However, Covid 19 fundamentally challenged that, and I think not only for health practitioners, but also for government officials, in the sense that we saw how health shocks can basically disrupt economies, can shatter public confidence in institutions, can fuel misinformation and disinformation, can show and put in evidence the weaknesses of systems, supply chains, and so on and so forth, and increase or reshape geopolitical alliances and positioning. So, I think these this realisation really brings to the forefront, the fact that health is critical, a critical piece for stability of nations and regions. But I will go a little bit beyond the framing of national security, and I would say that at the centre of it is health and human security. And with health security being a component to human security. Other components are, for example, food security, environmental security, social security, justice, and so on, and so forth. So, if we look at the element of human security at the centre of national security, regional security, and global security, that provides a little bit of a framework that broader landscape of security. 

Sharryn Parker   

Yeah, wow. Nick, can I ask you to comment at this point? How does what Esperanza has said intersect with your studies? 

Nick Thomson   

That's very salient what Esperanza has outlined there.  You could go a little further, even, as well. One of the fundamentals here, which kind of even underpins this, even this discussion even further, is that that health is a fundamental human right, and therefore it is on the states. Every nation state has the absolute obligation to ensure that their citizens have a right to health. And I think that that begins to kind of shape the conversation when you start to frame it like that, that this is not just national security, it is an obligation, and to ensure that that happens, we have a whole range of systems at play, whether that be at the national level, in terms of childhood vaccinations, or whether that be at the international level, playing our role with the International Health Regulations 2005. But yeah, as has been laid out to bare, the Covid 19 pandemic really, really kind of pushed this interface of health and security right into the living rooms, and indeed the shanty towns all across the world. And in doing so, we highlighted a range of important kind of constructions here, you know, one, is the inequity that we see in the world, two, is, you know, the power of economies and larger nation states, who are, you know, protecting their own citizens first, as opposed to kind of a global community. At the same time, we saw some incredibly, some incredible science being done that was fast tracked and well resourced, and has advanced, particularly RNA vaccine technology. So, you know, a lot has come out. Are we better? Are we better off? We like to think we are. We'd like to think that this conversation is now, is now more mature, and we can actually have this particular part of it, the global health security agenda body that that supports the WHO in monitoring our global health preparedness, pandemic preparedness argues that we are in fact not better off, and I think after the biggens that have gone into this globally, that that is both a comment on the complexity, but also on some of the gaps that that we are facing going forward. 

Sharryn Parker   

Fantastic, thanks, Nick. Esperanza, I guess that leads us to another question for you. You know, can you highlight to us how some of these global issues and these problems that's been highlighted by Nick actually come back to affect Australians, and what we can do better to, one, underline our own security, but also to prepare ourselves for the next pandemic.  

Esperanza Martinez   

I think the question here is that, or the issue to examine is that pathogens, they are risky in themselves, infectious diseases, but at the same time they expose vulnerabilities in systems, and I think that's what we need to, rather than asking, how do we prepare for the next pandemics, how do we prepare for the next risk. Because the next risk might be an infectious disease risk, but it might also be a cyber security threat against health infrastructure. We saw, for example, in Covid, many hospitals, their confidential data was accessed using a lot of different weaknesses in the infrastructure. So we, when we look at this from a systemic perspective, how do we, how are we better prepared as a country and as a society? It rings different alarm bells in different departments and ministries, and say, okay, do we need to prepare from a water and sanitation perspective? We need actually to review our migration and our border protection policies. We need to really look at our biosecurity, our finances, our geopolitical arrangements, because today something was going to happen in the Indo-Pacific, we might lose vital supply chains, including our pharmaceuticals. So I think that the question is, how are we better prepared as a nation to face different risks? Because the issue today is the pathogen risk seats in a polycrisis environment, meaning an environment where different risks are happening at the same time, and one is complementing and worsening the other. For example, we will look globally, most of the outbreaks today are happening in places that are in active armed conflict, so there is the widespread of infectious diseases, displacement as well is associated with the migration or patterns of disease, but you have climate change, meaning that there are diseases that today are happening in different parts of the world that were before unknown and that have no immune. But we also have misinformation that is undermining the ability and the willingness of populations to get vaccinated, so if this is on regular vaccination, let's think about the next pandemic by an infectious agent. How do we deal with that if people and populations are not going to get vaccinated? So it's an element of trust. So rather than looking at how do we prepare for the next pandemic, how do we prepare the systems to be better aligned with what we want, which is more resilient societies to be able to withstand multiple shocks. 

Sharryn Parker 

Look, Nick, I think that's the question for you. You know, trust is public infrastructure. How we actually know what the question is, what do you propose the answer, or the rehearsal might be for this problem set? 

Nick Thomson   

I mean, that's a super question. That's also some really super commentary there from Dr Esperanza. Maybe a couple of additions there that might help kind of help freeing this up a bit historically, as well. I think, if we, if we go back to Covid, and if we also look at our present diphtheria outbreak, particularly in rural remote communities, both really tragically hit these communities incredibly hard. If we look at why is it those communities, why is it the small communities of the Barclay region of Tennant Creek and Canteen Creek, and Upper Rule, and why are these communities at 3% of first dose Covid vaccine when the rest of the country was 83%. And so, and if you look into the history of that, you're talking about a population that has been displaced already, that has access to Northern Territory health-governed clinics that are placed in locale of these communities, and for whatever reasons, over periods of time, an already fragile trust completely breaks down, you know. It breaks down for several reasons. It breaks down for the reasons that Esperanza has also laid out, that misinformation, disinformation, mal-information that are all super viral in this interconnected world manifests, and all of a sudden a rumour becomes the scientific fact. And if you are in a rural, remote community, and you don't feel that you're being listened to anyway, you might have a genuine question, Does Covid actually prevent me getting pregnant if I'm a 16 year old indigenous woman, right? And you've got people in a clinic that are going just get the shot, right? There is a disconnect there between how we translate science to the social realities of some of the communities in our own country. Now take that back a little bit further, and if you know, if as a country you could argue we undermined climate science for best parts of three or four decades, then all of a sudden we get hit by a global pandemic, and we're telling everyone to take a vaccine. So, hang on a second, what is this? We don't trust the science, but we trust this science. So, I think it's incredibly important that we keep the integrity of our scientific community very much at the forefront of our thoughts here and of the way that we go about building that resilience that Esperanza has spoken to. You, have to have a scientific community that is believed, that is trusted, and I think the diphtheria outbreak is just a classic flow and effect of  vaccine, hesitancy is the wrong word, right, it's part of the story, but you know what we have seen, particularly with Covid, and particularly with the way that social networks and the internet flows, is that, as you well know, and as many people in the security agencies know, yeah, this is where like-minded groups become echo chambers upon themselves. If I'm an anti-vaxxer, and you are as well, share, and we'll become friends pretty quickly on Facebook, and we'll say, I can't believe these scientists, you know, trying to drill this down our throat again. So, there's some of the kind of larger scale systems challenges that, you know, the intelligence community and National Security Cabinet need to be grappling with. How do we real rebuild trust in science? And I think that that's an aspect of it. And just as a final reflection on Dr Esperanza's thoughts, totally correct in terms of where are we seeing real outbreaks. So polio, right, so Afghanistan, northern Nigeria, and Chad, right, and a bit of Pakistan [unintelligible], right. Huge places of absolute fragility and conflict, and the inability of health services to access places, so even at that very basic level, Sharryn, the words were interesting.  

Sharryn Parker   

I think what we're saying here is trust can actually, really go a long way into shaping behaviour. And I would offer, then, that early detection becomes even more critical. So, Esperanza, how do you think the early detection piece fits into all of this? Because everything we've spoken about is a response mechanism thus far. How do we get ahead of that cycle? 

Esperanza Martinez   

And link it with the previous conversation about trust. I think for our audience it will be really interesting, because normally you say critical infrastructures are bridges, energy sector, hospitals, military facilities. You don't think of trust something so intangible as a critical infrastructure, but actually, when you look at how do you actually respond to an infectious disease, you start by people reporting symptoms, and very often they don't even come from the human health sector, they come from the animal sector, and then is having the trust, and the institutions are going to actually take that information and handle it with care to control the outbreak, not necessarily to create panic or to punish the very person that our report is reporting that something weird is happening with the herds or with the flock of animals. So that first element of detection, it takes trust for a community to actually allow healthcare workers to confirm diagnosis. Then it takes trust to say the vaccine that you are giving me, as Nick was saying, is safe. It takes trust as well to say, okay, and I'm going to disseminate the right messages, and I'm going to try to base my social media feed on science. So all of those elements are actually deeply rooted on the trust of individuals and communities. And the challenge here, and you ask Sharryn, how do we build trust? The issue with trust is that it takes time to develop it. You really need to spend time, and this at the political level is challenging, because very often you have shifting politics and shifting political parties. So, how do you maintain trust in the system despite the fact that you change leaders over time? The health situation of a nation doesn't change overnight. The health needs, but also the preparedness as well, should not be dependent on those political waves. So, that's the first element. And the second element is identifying those figures within the community that actually are trusted. I was based in Geneva when the Covid 19 pandemic was taking place, and I was responsible for overseeing the humanitarian adaptations globally in situations of armed conflict, and I was really interested in the fact that in Australia, leaders of the Defence of the military forces were actually at the forefront, talking to the communities almost on the daily news. Because they are trusted, because the communities say, I know this is coming from the military, and it's coming from the authorities, health authorities as well, we can trust this information. In other countries, and in other contexts, you will not put a military leader at all related to health information, because that will undermine trust immediately. So, it's how do you identify those elements within government, within different agencies, and different ministries or departments that are able to talk to the communities and hold onto that trust, because it's quite precious and quite indispensable. 

Sharryn Parker   

So, I think there is, you know, the message certainly in Australia is that there is high trust in the military. Nick, you have spent a lot of time talking about the military's role in health security, and I realise that's a, you know, a global stance. Would that work in Australia? And if so, how would we actually deploy it? 

Nick Thomson   

Yes, it would work, and yes, it does work. Covid 19 was an example of that, where, at some point, our national vaccine rollout was put under the control of some very experienced, you know, current and former military, you know, actors, and working arm in arm, hand in hand with, you know, chief health of the country. So you know, yes is the answer. The reason it can work is in countries, well, like Australia, not all countries are the same, as Esperanza mentioned, you know, often with the military, and indeed civil security sectors more generally, you have well-funded, well-resourced outfits that are command, control, you know, control, command structures that can roll out things that smaller, perhaps more technical agencies, such as departments of health, particularly many countries, simply can't go around and do the door to door work of vaccinating or giving health messages, so how does it happen? Well, I think it happens with the first of all the understanding that it's required, so a baseline level of pathogen awareness is required as part of your involvement in in the armed services, you're involved in border control, in police, you know, in immigration, in customs, you know, you have to have, we require these sectors now to have a competency. We're not expecting 10 out of 10 infectious disease field trained epidemiologists, right, of which the military has several, particularly if you look at the US military, Walter Reed, the legacy of the CDC's, original constructs as well. Military has been incredibly, and still remains, incredibly important in viral research, particularly, but all a whole range of cutting-edge pathogen control work. So, absolutely, they're critical, and the people that work within those labs, you know, they certainly know that already. But can we, can we build your root and branch? Can you build your 21 year old military recruit from Cambodia, who sits on the Thai-Cambodia border? Can you get him from a, from a zero out of 10 to a solid four or five, can you tell the difference between foot and mouth disease and bovine tuberculosis? And I think if we can get to that level, then our entire global health preparedness system gets a bit of a boost. 

Esperanza Martinez   

I would like to add to that, the military contributes, definitely plays a contributory role, however, should not be one of the main responders. And even Australia, I would like to posit that this is the case here, because if we see the responses, for example, in the Black Summer fires, the military was at the forefront, Covid, the military was on the forefront, then you add another, then you added the floating, then military was at the forefront. The military capabilities have to be ready for defence. You have a deterioration in the geopolitical environment around Australia simultaneously? You will have your military forces basically carrying vaccines, distributing, mobilising, moving patients from one place to the other, and so on and so forth. So, yes, the military capabilities should be at the service of emergency responses, but they should not be the backbone of emergency responses. Not only for Nick, already mentioned something, in emergency responses for infectious diseases, you do need a lot of community engagement, a lot of community work, and that's not the job of a soldier, of an officer, that's the job of a public health practitioner, of a community health worker, of a midwife, or the primary health care worker, and many others in the community. Australia, as every country in the world, has a Red Cross society than many other civil society organisations that can perform that role. So, the question here is that, unfortunately, we immediately take hold of the military because they are ready. So, the question is, how can we as a country be ready with all the different other institutions, so everyone plays their part, and we don't undermine the military capabilities. The issue of military readiness in relation to pandemics and epidemics is a critical one, and it really poses a question of, is a country that is responding to an outbreak or an epidemic more susceptible, for example, to foreign attack, and that's a national security question, and the answer should be no, because the military is doing its job, contributing to the response, but it's focusing on that, while the economic authorities are dealing with the economic impact of the crisis, the health sector is dealing with the health sector impact, but you do need a very high level of coordination, central coordination, to get to that point where everyone delivers the best capabilities they have from their own sector without undermining their own standing in order, particularly national security. 

National Security Podcast   

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Sharryn Parker   

So let me open the next question to you. You know, the military, certainly in the Australian context, is leaned upon one because of its social contract and trusted, highly trusted social contract it has with the Australian people. So I absolutely understand that. The second part of that equation, however, is always equipment and the people it has access to, and then the third part of that is investment. So, again, open to both of you to respond. What is the differential between pushing money toward the right department so that they can actually uptake responsibility for this as a whole, in order to build the trust, and then provide the response that is needed in Australia. 

Nick Thomson   

First of all, you know, when we put our Lancet special issue on security and health, you know, a lot of my public health human rights friends were getting in touch with me, saying, you know, what are you on about, Nick? You're trying to securitise health. I'm like, well, no, that's not the thing, my friend. The thing here is that what you don't want your military is doing around the world is disabling health. So some of the contexts here are important. So, for example, we were so close to malaria eradication on the Myanmar-Chinese border, and now in the, in the, you know, in the ongoing takeover from the junta, the conflict is raging, that the people are really unwell, and malaria is indeed back, and that kind of talks to how militaries can disable, you know, health and health preparedness really very quickly. Getting to your point around, around the, how do we prepare the people, the communication, you know, what's that piece there? Yeah, what does the early warning surveillance look like? And I think Esperanza made a really good comment before around rarely the health people that are picking some of these things up first, right? It's the people that are further out, and so I'll just give you a quick example of some work that is happening in the Pacific, because I think this is relevant to the context. The Pacific region, as part of its regional security architecture has a declaration, the Boe Declaration of 2019 It's a really important document, because it foregrounds climate change and human security as the biggest security threats, followed by traditional security threats, transnational crime, narcotics, financial monitoring, human trafficking, etc. cyber, etc. etc. Now, if that's the regional architecture and the declaration that the leaders sign up to, it's on the national security guys to work out, well, hang on a second, how do we represent climate change as part of our national security? How do we represent biological threat preparedness as part of our national security? So all of a sudden, and you've been talking, Sharryn, ahead of the head of this conversation today about the intelligence community, is what do we need to do here? How do we kind of take it a bit further, because it's clearly part of the national security debate. And so I would look to recent examples of some work. So, in the Pacific, you know, that this idea of an early warning, all hazards surveillance ultimately comes under the National Disaster Management, but that Act has changed to now be preparedness and prevention, as well as response, and it's all hazards. And within that, there is a subcommittee in Fiji of the Prevention Preparedness Subcommittee of the National Disaster Management Organisation to look at early warning surveillance that then reports directly up to National Security Cabinet. Now, through tabletop exercise or CMX, or whatever you want to do, you can test the very boundaries of the country, literally, so you could, you know, you could set up scenarios where we have, where it's the fishing, the fishermen's wives who are calling the cops, saying their fishermen haven't come back for another day and a half because they've had to go further out to sea because they're reporting some kind of algal bloom. So all of a sudden that signal then comes back. The health authorities are picking up, hang on a second, we've got a bunch of kids with neurotoxic disorders going on here. You got in the seafood markets, and the crabs that live for three days are dead in one. Okay. Well, let's start to put a little bit together, and then put it up with a provincial divisional district, and then into the national committee, and all before we've even raised the spectrum of military involvement. All right, so that's how, A, you keep them back, it's B, how you actually actively involve communities. And I know when we look at the stuff in Northern Australia with some of our indigenous rangers and the work that they're doing, both in border control and infectious disease, is an example of pharmacy here too. So there's some food for thought there, I would hope. 

Sharryn Parker   

I think so. Absolutely. Esperanza. 

Esperanza Martinez   

Yeah, to answer your question, I would like to take a little bit of a global overview, and then zoom into Australia. And we're looking at the humanitarian needs today, and we say most of the outbreaks and the potential new pandemic is going to emerge from an area in active war. The amount of funding required today to attend the life saving needs globally is less than 1% of the global military expenditure, less than 1% to actually attend life saving needs, including healthcare. 

Sharryn Parker   

It's an astounding thing to think about. 

Esperanza Martinez   

It is sobering, and it is, when we look and we say, oh, we invest so much in overseas development assistance, or we invest so much on humanitarian action. Why do we do that? Well, because these investments are not charity, these investments are actually building our own capability, our own resilience, because the less fragility there is around us, then the more protected we are. And here, and I tend to say that Australia is an island geographically, but it's not an island when it comes to risks and pathogens, particularly. They don't have a passport, they will be.. it doesn't matter if we have a super military capability, they will just basically are able to move in a different way, and if we talk about cyber security risk, including the healthcare sector, they also don't respect borders. So, I think that element of fragility and investment, I think we do have the perception that we are investing a lot of funding, a lot of money in overseas development assistance, and we see it as a duty, as something we better we should be spending that money in Australia. Actually, the overseas development assistance to reduce fragility increases the resilience of systems around the region and around Australia that can detect pathogens early, can treat them, and can actually contain them. So the whole element of the response. So what we see globally, which is this element with this invest in overseas development assistance and humanitarian action, which includes a large portion of health to dedicate to defence, is also replicating here. We see an increased defence expenditure because we want to be safer, and that's the responsibility of the government from a national security perspective, and that's why I argue that if we take a human security perspective and you put humans at the centre safe and secure and healthy, then that enhances the national readiness to be more secure. In many different ways, we will have better ability to actually communicate healthcare messaging at the same time combat a lot of misinformation that is fueling polarisation and so on and so forth. So you have, and it's already evidence of the amount of multiplying factors that you have when you build trust and when people feel that their basic needs are covered. And we still have a lot of inequity within Australia that we haven't resolved, so it's all of those questions on how do we actually invest, not necessarily less in defence, but we also create some balance on the investments that we do in the other sectors. And moving beyond that is having national conversation of why do we need to invest in other sectors, in order to be better prepared from a national security perspective, which is exactly the conversation we are having today.

Sharryn Parker   

And it leads to the overall resilience factor, I think, of any, any nation state, but certainly ours. You know, it's a fantastic idea, and I think there's a lot in that to actually chew on as we consider that while the head of ASIO comes out every year and speaks about national security threats, perhaps we need to lean more on some of our human security leadership, climate security leadership to actually come out and deliver a similar speech. I know, you know, Nick, you were talking about the documents being available, I've seen them as well online, but that speech to the Australian community speaks to how we debate some of these issues, you know, Nick, you speak of One Health, what does that look like for a future Australia? 

Nick Thomson   

Great question. Just to backtrack a slide of maybe Esperanza, we could, you know, you go further, right? Like, you know, how much do we invest in in development assistance versus military spending on war? How much do we invest in peace, you know? And I think, yeah, as a kind of ,a let's protect the species and the planet kind of person, you know, you would love to see more efforts investing in peace, so we wouldn't need to spend billions and billions on war. That said, the, you know, Esperanza and I were talking about this yesterday, and I can reference this because it's in the construct of national security as well. One Health, which many in the audience may have heard of, and certainly some people definitely would have, is it's the one health concept. This idea that animal health, plant health, human health, and the ecosystem, and the healthy ecosystem are deeply connected constructs. And that, as Esperanza has been saying, we're more likely to see pathogen, you know, viral or jumping viruses, jumping from species to species, and you know this whole viral chatter thing that's going on all the time. Then occasionally it'll, it'll hit the human, and bang, you know, you're away, or you know, but, but that for that to happen, the pressures on those other systems are immense, so whether it's the conflict, or the utter destruction of our ecosystem and environments. For a whole range of reasons, both real, imagined, right, and wrong. And so I think when we start to talk about one health, first of all, it's the idea. Okay, well, what do we mean at the moment? It's called the one health concept. Well, okay, well, let's, let's try some, let's build some one health evidence. If we start to talk about one health as part of national security, we start to think about, okay, so which part of a national security evolution? So, if you have your national security circle in the pie chart, and we're going to do 20% cyber, 20% of this, and okay with how much percentage and how much of that pie is really responding to this kind of one health driven existential threats in many ways. And so I think we're not wanting you know national security to be you know for everyone to be engaged in all the time. But everyone needs to be engaged in an aspect of it, so this evolutionary opportunity for national security, you know, it's not on the people, but it's for the people. And I'm sure many would argue they are already for the people, but if, if that's truly for the people, then decision making through one health frameworks with a national security lens would mean, for example, are we going to build another hydropower dam? Is the cost benefit of that from a human security, from a planetary perspective, worthwhile? And to throw that kind of decision making through national, through national security eyes, I think would be a wonderful step forward for how we start to consider and how we communicate some of our national security work. And I think you're exactly right. Leadership from climate, leadership from planetary health, leadership from health, from ag, from wildlife, as part of that percentage of the pie in national security would just evolve us, and I know, and I can just mention this to give it some tangibility, I was in Bangkok a few weeks ago with Interpol and the Thai National Security Cabinet, and they co-hosted a meeting on bio threats as part of national security, One Health as national security, and the first battle, of course, there is, can we get one health understood across the government, and then indeed by the community. So, there's a lot of work to do with the UN quadriplecide that holds that one health space, but that work is beginning to evolve, and we are now starting to see this thinking starting to come through. How do we do it? Well, you do it for a start by having the conversation, and you bring these people together, security actors and non-security actors, and you begin. And if we can begin, then we can scape from there, both nationally, regionally, globally. 

Sharryn Parker   

Thank you, Nick. I think I could probably now just put one more question to you both. Nick, I might ask you first. If you could change one thing to improve Australia's preparedness tomorrow, what would it be, and why? 

Nick Thomson   

I have nothing but admiration for Australia's disease surveillance people and the ag sector, the vets, the ACDC more generally as a constructor, although it is new, and I think we need to give it its time to find its feet, and it's getting a really good test right now with the H5 and one avian flu circulating. So I think we are emerging into the right spaces with that. You know, if you take this a little geopolitically, which often national security is seen through or operates through, right? How can we influence our nearest and dearest, our Asia Pacific, our global partners, can we begin to start talking about one health as a construct of national security, regional global security more genuinely, more practically, with more examples of how we're doing it with more people that can speak to those things brought in to national security discussions, and I think you know national security to me people who aren't involved in it directly day to day is a construct that they just, they won't understand, they don't necessarily want to either, they're grateful for it, but that, you know, it's people in suits in underground, you know, cabinet routes, you know, doing stuff. And that's all to the good. But I think if we, if we bring it into the light for aspects of orbit that are existential, I think we will begin to develop a really cognizant, resilient, and engaged society, and hopefully that's the kind of societies that we can help support in other parts of. Well, that's what I'll do. 

Sharryn Parker   

Thank you, Nick. Esperanza. Can I leave you with the last word today? If you could change one thing to improve our preparedness tomorrow, what would it be, and why? 

Esperanza Martinez   

I would improve coordination between the different agencies. I think Australia has all the expertise that is required, not only to address infectious disease preparedness in the sense of identification response and recovery, but also other threats that might be coming in our way. And in the current environment we do need to consider a multi threat environment. But the issue is who coordinates who, when? If we look at Covid 19, there were so many different agencies, the coordination between federal and state took time. So, if we look at that example, Singapore has a very centralised coordination model that is not only activated when there is a crisis, but is actually actively pursuing coordination across different ministries to be better prepared. So, I would say, if we are going to improve as a nation to withstand the next shock, which is the very definition of resilience, is to withstand shocks, respond, and recover, we will need to be better at centrally organising that. And you have the CDC, which is technically very focused on infectious diseases, Centre for Disease Control. But then again, how do you coordinate that with the animal sector, animal welfare sector, with migration and borders, and so on and so forth. So, I think a central coordinator and coordination mechanism, I think, is the way to go, and a central coordination mechanism that is efficient, that is accountable to the people, to the society that is transparent and over time actually builds trust. We already discussed the military in Australia, and that element of trust building. It will take time, but we are in an era where more and more challenges are being added. So it's just climate change, the risk of pandemics, geopolitics, then we have an economic downturn, and then we have many more that is still to come. So, in that environment, it will be almost irresponsible not to think about a central coordination mechanism that deals with both preparedness, response, and recovery for multi hazards, multi threats. 

Sharryn Parker   

Fantastic response. Thank you very much. I think ultimately there is definitely room in this conversation, in this national conversation, here on the National Security Podcast for the Centre for Disease Control, and we will certainly work towards bringing in them as a coordinating voice for Australia in the future. Esperanza Martinez and Nick Thompson. Thank you very much for having this conversation with the National Security Podcast today. 

Esperanza Martinez   

Thank you. 

Nick Thomson   

It's been your pleasure. Thanks so much. 

National Security Podcast   

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