Governing in a Pandemic: Law and Government in Australia, 1919

The 1918–19 pneumonic influenza pandemic reached into mainland Australia in January 1919 and spread through the country over the next nine months. As a major public health emergency the pandemic proved to be a significant test of Australian governance. This article explores this history through attention to the imperial framing of Australian international and regional responses, the mechanisms of federal-state relations, the constitutional framework for management of domestic health and public order, and the legal disposition of rights and responsibilities as they arose in the events of 1919. The experience of 1919 highlighted institutional strengths of the Australian state by this period, in constitutional and governmental arrangements, and in capabilities of domestic management of health and public order.