Australia doesn't have such a centre, and the party says the country was unprepared for a pandemic when COVID-19 hit earlier this year.

The Australian Medical Association has long called for Australia to have a Centre for Disease Control, that would work with other countries to build public health capacity internationally and would manage communicable disease surveillance and prevention and control measures.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has criticised the government's response as "too slow, too reactive and too uncoordinated".

"We can't be left playing catch-up again," he said.

"We can't afford another Ruby Princess, or another tragic disaster in aged care. Our health, our lives and our economy all depend on us getting our response to future pandemics right."

All other countries within the OECD have a Centre for Disease Control or equivalent, Labor says.

The party's health spokesman Chris Bowen said a centre wouldn't just benefit Australia during a pandemic.

"We know that almost 90 per cent of Australian deaths are associated with chronic disease - but 38 per cent of the chronic disease burden is preventable. An Australian CDC would save lives and ease the pain of chronic illness."

A lack of coordination between jurisdictions and confusion about where responsibility lay, such as in the Ruby Princess and aged care situations, could be prevented if a single agency was in charge of the response, the opposition believes.

Australia's response to the pandemic has mostly been led by state and federal governments with coordination through National Cabinet, with jurisdictions taking different approaches.