ABC TV’s Four Corners program this week raised serious concerns about algorithm-based assessment of elderly people’s support needs; however, this is only one of many concerns surrounding aged care, as The Zap reports.
A survey based on responses from over 3,550 frontline nurses and care workers found “the sector is still struggling with chronic understaffing, increased workplace violence, and a lack of transparency from providers for billions of dollars in taxpayer funding meant for residents’ care”.
The column also reports on recommendations for the next National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement, making clear to Governments “the reforms needed to achieve better outcomes for people, families and communities across Australia”.
Congratulations to Aboriginal health leaders Dr Pat Turner AM and Christine Corby AM for their recognition at the NAIDOC Awards ceremony on 15 August at Mparntwe/Alice Springs.
The column also brings news of a ‘Taking The Piss’ campaign, as well as some heart-felt grammatical calls to action.
The quotables?
There are Prime Ministers, Ministers, departmental secretaries, public servants, and probably quite a few Aboriginal leaders, who know what it feels like to sit across the table from Pat Turner when she thinks you can do better.”
And…
Australians with private health insurance continue to pay significantly more for medically implanted devices than is justified, with prices far exceeding average public hospital benchmarks.”
Charles Maskell-Knight writes:
On 10 August, the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (DHDA) released the Final Evaluation of the Prescribed List Reforms (aka private health insurance prostheses list) carried out by Nous Group.
This followed articles in the Nine newspapers comparing Australian prices unfavourably with prices overseas.
The evaluation was generally positive, finding that “benefit reductions generated $540 million in savings for the PHI system during the reforms, with cumulative savings projected to exceed $1 billion by the end of FY26”.
It noted that: “Cardiac Implantable Electronic Device reductions were completed for the device component only, with future funding arrangements for technical support services still unresolved.”
As well: “General Use Items were scheduled for removal from the PL [prescribed list] but were retained indefinitely after agreement over an alternative funding model could not be reached.”
One of the objectives of the reforms was to “clarify the purpose, definition and scope of the PL in legislation” – apparently renaming the Prostheses List (a specific and helpful description) as the Prescribed List (generic and ambiguous) was an element of the successful implementation of this objective.
The Medical Technology Association of Australia (MTAA) issued a rare statement responding to the reporting in the Nine newspapers about Australian prostheses prices.
MTAA said it was “concerned these discredited comparisons are fundamentally flawed, cherry-picked and wrong at the most basic level”.
“Critically, the claims are being recycled by private health insurers to distract from the issues that matter most to patients and the health system: record insurer profits, the viability crisis of private hospitals, and patients receive less value from their cover.”
The Members Health Fund Alliance (Members Health, the lobby group for private health insurers that do not distribute a profit) welcomed the release of the evaluation, but said “the reform process [was] a very long way from completion”.
Members Health said “the just released 2023–24 hospital data by Government shows Australians with private health insurance continue to pay significantly more for medically implanted devices than is justified, with prices far exceeding average public hospital benchmarks”.
“Private prostheses expenditure totalled approximately $2.48 billion, compared to [sic] $1.38 billion if public sector prices were applied, revealing a $1.10 billion saving opportunity, or 44 percent.”
Ministers and government
Appearing on the Sunrise television show, Health Minister Mark Butler said DHDA “has been working with [the companies sponsoring GLP-1 weight loss drugs] to try and agree a price that they’re willing to receive and we’re willing to pay on behalf of taxpayers and we haven’t been able to agree that price yet”.
“This is too important a class of drugs not to have on the PBS,” he said. “I’ve made that clear to the two companies that have these drugs in the market and to my Department, we’ve got to get there one way or the other.”
Butler also announced that: “Australians turning 50 will receive a letter to outline how they can reduce the risk of developing dementia and stay healthy for longer.”
“The letters encourage Australians to eat healthily and stay active, limit alcohol, quit smoking, get their heart health and diabetes risk checked and keep their brain active among a range of other key factors crucial to their health.”
Aged Care Minister Sam Rae conducted several interviews (here and here) with a focus on waiting times for aged care services.
Rae said his “ambition” was to reduce the waiting time for Support at Home to three months by the middle of next year.
DHDA announced “older people living with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) now have priority access to ongoing Support at Home and immediate priority under the Assistive Technology and Home Modifications scheme funding if their MND diagnosis is recorded during their aged care assessment”.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) said it was “aware of media reports about the safety of defibrillator devices used in some ambulance services and healthcare facilities”.
(The Sydney Morning Herald reported that defibrillators were cutting out, giving false readings, and otherwise not performing as intended.)
The TGA said “defibrillators in Australian ambulances and healthcare facilities continue to be safe to use”.
“The TGA has not issued a recall of these devices. They should be used in line with manufacturer’s instructions for use and any clinical safeguards put in place by healthcare facilities or authorities.”
The TGA said it had suspended further supply of the affected defibrillators while further information was gathered.
Noting that “in some instances, the legislation under which the TGA operates limits the detail that the TGA can release publicly about regulatory action, without the agreement of the sponsor”, it undertook to begin public consultation on “work to further increase transparency around its regulatory decisions”.
For more details on this, see: Public consultation – Sharing more information about medical devices.
The TGA also said: “Device Technologies Australia Pty Ltd, the sponsor of the relevant products, and the manufacturer, Corpuls, has agreed to provide additional information to assure the public about the safety of Corpuls 3 and 3T device.”
Perhaps galvanised into action by Croakey’s reporting last week, the Centre for Disease Control issued it first statement for a month about avian influenza, saying “the risk to people in Australia remains low”.
Susi Tegen, CEO of the National Rural Health Alliance (NRHA), wrote an article for Croakey arguing that the Government’s policy on bird flu should aim “to prevent a wildlife and agricultural emergency from becoming a rural health, economic, ecological and social crisis”.
“Bird flu should therefore be viewed not only as a biosecurity issue but as a test of Australia’s ability to protect rural communities through timely, integrated and evidence-based action.”
The CDC also issued a report identifying actions to eliminate congenital syphilis prepared by NACCHO and ASHM, including partnership-based governance models that embed shared decision-making between Government and ACCHO sector organisations, and community-led, culturally safe models of care to improve engagement and reduce barriers to accessing care.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released updated data on the burden of disease due to mental health.
The Australian Association of Psychologists (AAP) said the data “show that funding does not match the scale of need when it comes to mental illness”.
“Mental health and substance use disorders account for almost 15 percent of the nation’s disease burden, but receive only seven percent of health expenditure.”
AAP Executive Director Tegan Carrison said “a health system that directs seven percent of expenditure towards 15 percent of the disease burden is fundamentally out of balance”.
While there is probably general agreement that mental health services are underfunded, different illnesses need a different intensity of health resources to treat them, and the idea of a one-to-one correlation between expenditure and burden does not make sense.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released May 2026 earnings data, showing full-time adult average weekly ordinary time earnings (AWOTE) of $2,084 – which works out at $108,665 a year.
According to the Australian Tax Office, the threshold for the tier 1 (1 percent) Medicare Levy Surcharge (MLS) for people without private health insurance in 2026-27 is $105,001.
When the MLS was introduced almost 30 years ago, it applied to single people with incomes over $50,000, at a time when AWOTE was $35,000. In other words, people needed to earn 42 percent more than the average to be caught by the MLS. In today’s terms, that equates to a threshold of $155,000.
We are now in a situation where people on below average earnings are hit with the levy. No wonder more people than ever before hold private health insurance. And no wonder an increasing proportion of them are buying cheap products with limited coverage – as a tax avoidance measure.
Following a series of scandals about the conduct of IVF clinics (see here and here), Health Ministers agreed last September on the need to reform the sector, and agreed that the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) should provide independent accreditation for assisted reproductive technology services, against updated national standards.
The ACSQHC has now released an initial draft of the National Safety and Quality Standards for Assisted Reproductive Technology Service, developed in collaboration with the sector, and is seeking comment by 6 September.
Ahpra announced the appointment of Yorta Yorta woman Nicole McCartney as the new National Director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Strategy Unit.
Ahpra said McCartney “is from a long line of strong matriarchs and advocates for Aboriginal rights”, with more than 20 years’ experience in Aboriginal health, including as the inaugural Chief Aboriginal Health Adviser in the Victorian Department of Health, and Manager of the Aboriginal Policy and Coordination Unit in Western Australia.
Ahpra CEO Justin Untersteiner welcomed McCartney’s appointment, saying her “experience and advocacy work will have a profound impact on our important work to keep the public safe”.
Consumer and public health groups
Cancer Council Australia marked Tradies National Health Month with a statement reminding tradies about the dangers that aren’t always visible while on the job, including diesel engine exhaust emissions, silica dust, asbestos, welding fumes, and wood dust.
COTA said a survey it had conducted found 82 percent of COTA Australia supporters surveyed opposed the proposed changes to private health insurance rebates, 89 percent were concerned about their impact, and more than a third are planning to downgrade or cancel their private health insurance if the changes proceed.
COTA CEO Patricia Sparrow said “the research showed the proposed rebate changes were becoming part of a much wider conversation about the affordability and future role of private health insurance”.
Kidney Health Australia launched a ‘Taking The Piss’ campaign, offering free on the spot urine risk assessments.
Kidney Health Australia CEO Chris Forbes said “kidney disease can be symptomless, so we’re doing something loud and fun to get people’s attention and get them to their GP to get tested – we’re asking Aussies to literally start taking the piss”.
The organisation said anyone with the following should get tested for kidney disease:
- Had a stroke, heart attack or heart failure
- Diabetes
- Current or former smoker or vaper
- High blood pressure
- Family history of kidney failure
- Very overweight or obese
- History of acute kidney injury
- First Nations Australian over 18 years old
- Non-Indigenous Australian aged 60 and over.
Mental Health Australia, Suicide Prevention Australia, and Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Australia issued a statement setting out a shared vision for the next National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement, making clear to Governments “the reforms needed to achieve better outcomes for people, families and communities across Australia”.
The organisations called for:
- Strengthening governance and accountability by embedding sector and lived experience representation in all governance structures
- Enabling genuinely independent system oversight by re-establishing the National Mental Health Commission and National Suicide Prevention Office as independent agencies focused on system monitoring and public reporting
- Ensuring equitable access to supports by addressing service gaps; improving integration and local commissioning structures; and ensuring cultural safety of all supports
- Sustainably funding mental health and suicide prevention services to retain staff and provide stable community supports
- Investing in workforce wellbeing, growth, retention, distribution and capability as essential to delivering equitable access to quality and safe supports
- Improving existing services by continuing to build on and adapt critical services.
MS Australia issued a statement on the PBAC rapid review of MS medicines.
It said it welcomed “a structured, evidence-based review that includes the voices of people living with MS and their clinicians”, and that it wanted the review to:
- Recognise the diversity of MS and the need for personalised treatment
- Acknowledge the importance of first-line access to a broad range of PBS-listed medicines, including high-efficacy treatments
- Properly consider differences between treatments, including effectiveness, safety, mode of administration and suitability for individual patients
- Ensure lived experience and specialist clinical expertise are central to the process
- Support stable, affordable access now and into the future, without unnecessary treatment disruption or delay.
National Seniors Australia (NSA) said a new report, Delayed Discharge from Hospital: Older Australians’ experiences and perspectives, presents older people’s proposed solutions to the national “delayed discharge crisis”.
As well as widely discussed options – more residential places and better and more timely home care – the solutions included:
- More transition care facilities – such as rehab, respite, and step-down care – for patients who require some clinical assistance or supervision after medical treatment, but not hospital-level care
- Better incorporation of dementia care and specialist clinical care into aged care residences and also at home through community nursing services
- Better integration of gerontological expertise into hospital care, to account for older people’s more complex care needs and avoid making things worse through negligence
- Discharge planning that starts at hospital admission and takes a tailored, person-centred approach facilitated by an in-hospital aged care navigator, so that quality decisions can be made.
NSA said the report delves into a key cause of the problem – “the fact that many older Australians simply have no one in their lives who can provide care to them once they are discharged from hospital”.
The Neurological Alliance Australia (NAA) released the results of its inaugural Neuro Survey, which “gathered the experiences and perspectives of 3,805 Australians [and] provided the first national picture of the challenges faced by people affected by neurological conditions”.
(Like many of these surveys, respondents were self-selected, meaning the results are illustrative but not statistically significant.)
Findings included:
- Fewer than four in ten of respondents (39 percent) described their care as coordinated
- More than half (51 percent) of respondents experienced difficulty accessing neurological care
- Nearly one in three (30 percent) waited more than four years for a diagnosis
- Nearly half (48 percent) delayed or skipped health care because of cost
- Just one in ten (9 percent) said they felt fully supported by their healthcare team.
NAA said the findings “point to priorities for action, including improving access to earlier diagnosis and specialist care, establishing coordinated models of care across health, disability and aged care services, increasing investment in neurological research, building the workforce needed to meet growing demand, and ensuring equitable access to care regardless of where someone lives or their neurological condition”.
NAA called on all Australian Governments “to work alongside people with lived experience, carers, clinicians, researchers and community organisations to develop and implement a National Action Plan for Neurological Conditions, supported by state and territory plans”.
New charity Strong Australia launched National Strength Day on 14 August. The charity said it is “dedicated to making strength a national health priority and helping Australians stay stronger, healthier and independent for longer”.
First Nations
Arrernte and Gurdanji woman Pat Turner AM, former NACCHO CEO and lead convenor of the Coalition of Peaks, was named NAIDOC Person of the Year at a ceremony on 15 August Mparntwe/Alice Springs.
Dr Josie Douglas, General Manager of Professional Services at the Central Land Council, gave this acceptance speech on behalf of Dr Pat Turner AM at the national awards ceremony on Mparntwe Country, honouring “an extraordinary public servant, advocate and institution-builder, but above all, an extraordinary Aboriginal woman”.
“Throughout her life, Pat has had a very clear understanding of power: who has it, who doesn’t, and the responsibility that comes with it,” Douglas said.
“She began her career in the Australian Public Service in Alice Springs as a switchboard operator. Even then, Pat was Pat. When the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs visited town, she volunteered to be his driver so she could tell him directly what was really happening on the ground.
“That determination to get Aboriginal voices directly to the people making decisions has followed Pat throughout her life…
“Through all of it, Pat has been formidable. She knows her history. She knows the evidence. She remembers every promise. And she has never hesitated to speak truth to power.
“There are Prime Ministers, Ministers, departmental secretaries, public servants, and probably quite a few Aboriginal leaders, who know what it feels like to sit across the table from Pat Turner when she thinks you can do better.
“If a government made a commitment, Pat expected it to be delivered. If our people weren’t at the table, Pat wanted to know why. And if you told Pat you were going to do something, you had better do it. Because she would remember.”
Christine Corby AM, a proud Gamilaraay woman and a highly respected leader in Aboriginal health who has driven transformative change in north-west New South Wales for nearly four decades, was also recognised, as Female Elder of the Year. She is Chief Executive Officer of Walgett Aboriginal Medical Service (WAMS).
The Innovation Award went to the Young Indigenous Women’s STEM Academy (STEM Academy), a community-driven initiative transforming how Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander young women engage with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Grounded in Indigenous knowledges, cultural authority and relational leadership, the STEM Academy creates culturally safe pathways where identity, culture and aspiration are central to success.
More details of award winners are here.
Professor Marcia Langton wrote an article for The Saturday Paper following Garma, where Noel Pearson and NT MP Yingiya Mark Guyula were “arguing the same premise: that money raised nationally for Aboriginal disadvantage is being spent by states and territories on other things”. She wrote that the Commonwealth does not publish the figures that would allow this hypothesis to be tested.
Langton argued the Commonwealth could:
- Reinstate the Indigenous Expenditure Report, which lapsed after four editions
- Honour clause 118 of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, which would see every jurisdiction report which Aboriginal organisations it funds and by how much. This was agreed to in 2020, but has not happened
- Identify expenditure by recipient type, so that money reaching Aboriginal community-controlled organisations can be told apart from money reaching government agencies and non-Indigenous contractors. Governments already hold this data, but they do not release it
- Require reconciliation between assessment and expenditure: publish what the Commonwealth Grants Commission, which calculates the distribution of the GST, assesses each jurisdiction needs for its Aboriginal population alongside what that jurisdiction reports spending.
Langton wrote “the fourth is the one that bites, and the one officials will resist, because it changes equalisation from a measure of what a state could do into a record of what it did”.
“It is also the only measure that answers Pearson’s question about a government that prefers detaining children to educating them, because it makes the preference visible, attributable and potentially expensive at the ballot box. A substantial part of what the country counts as money spent on Aboriginal people is money spent locking us up and removing our children.”
Langton said “the Northern Territory receives more per head [in GST distribution] than anywhere else in the federation precisely because of its large, remote and disadvantaged Aboriginal population, yet it does not spend this money to give those people equal standards of living”.
“The Commonwealth writes down, in detail, how much of every transfer was generated by Aboriginal need, then hands the money over and never asks what happens to it. The money goes in; nobody can say where it comes out. The assessment is itemised; the expenditure is not.”
Trade unions
Following the release of the National Nursing Workforce Strategy on 5 August, Allied Health Professions Australia (AHPA) came out with a plaintive “what about us?”.
AHPA CEO Bronwyn Morris-Donovan said “the allied health community is eagerly awaiting the release of our own national workforce strategy; the timing could not be more important to support health care delivery across all states and territories”.
I hope Morris-Donovan and her members are not holding their breath waiting for the strategy to be released. According to the DHDA website, the National Allied Health Workforce Strategy is expected to be completed in 2025.
It then goes on to say “we are currently considering responses from the third round of public consultation, held between 20 January and 3 March 2025, which sought feedback on the draft strategy”.
The page was last updated on 6 June 2025.
The Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACCRM) and the Royal Australian College of GPs (RACGP) issued a joint statement welcoming the Medical Board of Australia’s decision to accredit their respective Rural Generalist training programs.
They said it was “an important step in implementing Rural Generalist specialist recognition, following the Medical Board’s recognition of Rural Generalist Medicine as a new field of speciality practice in September 2025”.
The Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) welcomed the accreditation decision. RDAA President Professor Sarah Chalmers said the decision turned years of work into real progress for rural, remote and First Nations communities.
“For medical students and junior doctors, it confirms that Rural Generalist Medicine is a respected, nationally recognised career with a vital place in Australia’s future workforce.”
She said while accreditation was a major achievement, “the next task is to make it count in the day-to-day operation of the health system”.
“Rural Generalist Medicine must be properly recognised through the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), and in state and territory credentialling, employment frameworks and medical officers’ certified or enterprise agreements.”
“These are not minor administrative details. They determine whether Rural Generalists can use their full scope of practice, whether they are paid appropriately for their advanced skills, and whether rural communities can recruit and keep them.”
The Australian Dental Association (ADA) said more than 40 dentists, including ADA Board and committee members and key advocates from across the profession, met with MPs and Senators from across the political spectrum at Parliament House in Canberra from 11 to 12 August.
The ADA said “the message to every MP and Senator with whom delegates met centred on the clear and present need that vulnerable populations in Australia have to access a full range of dental care options, with the implementation of a National Oral Health Plan (NOHP) top of the agenda”.
DHDA told Croakey in November last year that “the department is working with all states and territories to finalise Australia’s next NOHP. It is expected a new plan will be presented to Health Ministers for consideration in 2026. The NOHP 2015-2024 remains active until it is superseded by a new plan”.
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) released the results of its Aged Care Pulse Check – The Real Impact of Reforms based on responses from over 3,550 frontline nurses and care workers.
The ANMF said the survey showed “the sector is still struggling with chronic understaffing, increased workplace violence, and a lack of transparency from providers for billions of dollars in taxpayer funding meant for residents’ care”.
The findings included:
- Almost half (49 percent) of the respondents said they had insufficient time to deliver care, increasing to 56 percent for staff from for-profit providers
- 48 percent of all respondents said the ratio of nursing staff to care staff was inadequate, increasing to 52 percent in for-profit providers
- While almost all staff (96 percent) experienced and/or observed one or more instances of violence and aggression at their workplace in the past 12 months, with most identifying residents as the perpetrators, workers who rated the overall level of staffing at their workplace as “very poor” were more likely to report experiencing violence and aggression, suggesting that inadequate staffing levels contribute to the likelihood of experiencing it
- 20 percent of respondents said a lack of funding/budget meant residents didn’t receive the services they need, and staff reported providers frequently failed to replace sick staff or hire agency workers, which was perceived as a measure to control costs.
ANMF Federal Secretary Annie Butler said the findings “provided a damning assessment of the aged care sector revealing that reforms implemented by the Albanese Government are not solving the sector’s problems”.
The ANMF recommended:
- Replacing care minutes for residents with mandated staffing ratios that are aligned with evidence-based benchmarks
- Introducing mandatory, standardised risk assessment and person-centred care planning to prevent and manage workplace violence and aggression
- Introducing nationally consistent, competency-based workforce training on violence prevention and management
- Developing and implementing a staged de-privatisation strategy to reduce for-profit ownership of aged care services and expand public and not-for-profit services
- Legislating transparent, standardised public reporting of provider financial performance and use of government funding
- Strengthening the role, resourcing and enforcement powers of the aged care regulator to ensure providers’ compliance and accountability of public funding.
Readers interested in the aged care sector should read this article by Cate Swannell in Health Services Daily, where she compares aged care star ratings to a chocolate teapot.
She writes “melting under any scrutiny, the ratings have now become totally useless to anyone trying to find a place worth dying in”.
Medical Deans Australia and New Zealand (Medical Deans) said “Australia is becoming increasingly dependent on internationally trained doctors to staff its health system, with new national registration data showing that fewer than half of all doctors entering practice were graduates of Australian medical schools”.
The data released by Ahpra in November last year shows 46 percent of first-time medical registrants in 2024–25 were domestic graduates, with a “substantial proportion [of the balance] having migrated from low- and middle-income countries where medical workforce shortages are often more severe than in Australia”.
Medical Deans said “the pace of growth in training capacity must be matched to Australia’s actual healthcare needs, rather than treating international recruitment as the default solution to workforce shortfalls”.
Medical Deans called on Governments to “commit to a long-term, transparent national medical workforce plan that sets out a clear pathway to greater self-sufficiency, including targets for the proportion of the medical workforce trained domestically, and sustained funding certainty for medical schools to plan and deliver training at the scale required”.
Following the release of its updated Climate change and planetary health position statement, the RACGP called for “climate change to return to the political agenda as a health priority, warning that climate change is already affecting Australians’ health and increasing pressure on the healthcare system”.
RACGP President Dr Michael Wright said “GPs are seeing the health impacts of climate change first-hand, from extreme heat, bushfires, floods and poor air quality to the impacts on people living with chronic conditions and those experiencing disadvantage”.
“Australia cannot afford for climate change to fall off the agenda while the health impacts continue to grow. Governments must put health at the centre of climate policy, fully implement the National Health and Climate Strategy, and invest in prevention and primary care to build healthier, more climate-resilient communities.”
Read more in this recent Croakey article.
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians Chapter of Addiction Medicine said the Government’s Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 does not go far enough to protect children, families and communities from gambling harm.
President of the Chapter Professor John Saunders said that the current bill is “ineffective and not fit-for-purpose”.
“If the Australian Government truly wants to do everything in its power to protect children and families from gambling harm, an outright ban on all gambling advertising is necessary,” he said.
Industry groups
The Australian Private Hospitals Association (APHA) released its submission to the DHDA consultation on informed financial consent, saying its “response to the key questions raised in the Government’s consultation on making informed financial consent legally enforceable are overwhelmingly positive”.
Pointing to hospitals’ strong record of informed financial consent for hospital fees, APHA CEO Brett Heffernan said “reform should focus on improving practitioner disclosure, insurer data transparency and system-wide digital infrastructure, rather than imposing additional compliance obligations on hospitals that do not control those fees”.
Members Health released its response to DHDA’s consultation paper on private health insurance reforms, with an overall approach of restrained scepticism.
It observes:
“The proposals outlined in this consultation range from relatively targeted administrative reforms through to potentially significant structural reforms affecting private health insurance products, Risk Equalisation arrangements, hospital funding mechanisms and models of care. Several proposals appear to be at an early stage of policy development and have not yet been supported by detailed modelling or impact assessment. Members Health believes reforms of this scale require robust evidence, detailed modelling, transparent impact assessments and realistic implementation pathways before final decisions are made.”
Members Health is to be congratulated on not actually using the phrase “half-baked, poorly thought-out rubbish”, but I’m sure it wasn’t far from the authors’ minds.
The Pharmacy Guild said that “as Australians escape winter for Europe, Bali and Queensland, trained community pharmacists are helping patients manage everything from forgotten medication and contraception to UTIs, asthma, skin conditions and vaccinations – without automatically requiring a GP appointment”.
Politicians and parliamentary committees
The Senate inquiry into the legislation establishing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner tabled its report, recommending that the bill be passed.
The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ageing and Aged Care Council (NATSIAACC) said it was disappointed the inquiry had not supported “the substantive strengthening called for through extensive First Nations consultation and advocated for by NATSIAACC”.
NATSIAACC CEO Kim Whiteley said “the model currently before Parliament does not yet give full effect to the independent and authoritative Commissioner envisaged by the Royal Commission and reinforced through the extensive consultation undertaken by the Interim First Nations Aged Care Commissioner”.
“Our Elders and Older People did not ask for a voice that can simply advise the system. They called for a Commissioner with the independence, powers and authority to challenge it, hold it accountable and drive lasting change. We urge the Parliament to address these shortcomings before the Bill is passed.”
The Senate inquiry into the Health Insurance Amendment (Incentive Payments and Other Measures) Bill also recommended passage.
This bill “provides a consistent statutory basis for the establishment and administration” of programs such as GP Practice Incentive Payments. It also renames the Health Insurance Act 1973 as the Medicare Act.
The House of Representatives Regional Development, Infrastructure and Transport Committee inquiry into Local Government Funding and Fiscal Sustainability held a hearing on 13 August attended by DHDA.
The committee said it wanted “to better understand from DHDA how local government can be supported to help deliver medical, aged care and disability services across their communities. In 2025-26, the Australian Government provided nearly $250 million to local governments for a range of public health services, as well as community-based health and home care services”.
International organisations
The OECD released a policy brief on Strengthening health checks for the prevention and management of cardiovascular disease.
The brief identifies five policy considerations for strengthening cardiovascular health checks: improving access, increasing awareness and uptake among high-risk populations, strengthening health data and digital infrastructure, integrating health checks into coordinated care pathways, and ensuring cost-effective program design.
“Together, these priorities can help policymakers strengthen cardiovascular prevention, reduce health inequalities and improve long-term population health.”
The Commonwealth Fund (US health policy think tank) released an article on How Care Coordination Varies in 10 Countries (including Australia).
The article contains a lot of interesting comparative data.
My favourite: “Around one in four primary care physicians in Switzerland, the US, and France said they usually received [a report of specialist visits within a week of service], compared to less than one in 10 in Australia, Germany, and the UK.
“Lack of timely information-sharing between clinicians and inadequate physician-to-physician communication can lead to delayed diagnoses, which in turn can result in health issues for patients.”
Finally
Two final comments this week (or perhaps a penultimate comment and a final comment).
First, over recent weeks I have seen several uses of the word “fellow” as a verb: for example, “the doctor will be joining a select group of recently Fellowed Rural Generalists from across Australia”.
This is as bad as using “medal” as a verb, and should be stopped at once!
Second, anyone who thought about the issue would have concluded that US President Donald Trump was not a very hands-on parent.
He confirmed this with his assertion this week that: “I saw this early on, and I’ve seen proof of it – where they have a vaccination that looks like the size of a bottle of soda poured into a little child’s body.”
He clearly never attended a doctor’s clinic when one of his children was being vaccinated.
Consultations and inquiries
Here is our weekly list of requests by government bodies and parliamentary committees for responses to consultations or submissions to inquiries, arranged in order of submission deadlines. Please let us know if there are any to add for next week’s column.
Department of Health, Disability and Ageing
Private Health Reforms – Consultation Paper 1
20 August (extended from 13 August)
Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority
The development of residential aged care pricing and costing advice to the Government for 2027-28
21 August
Senate Community Affairs Committee
Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026
21 August
Department of Health, Disability and Ageing
Co-design the future of aged care Application Programming Interfaces
29 August
Department of Health, Disability and Ageing
Inclusive Communities Fund Consultation
31 August
Therapeutic Goods Administration
Improvements to the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code
3 September
Therapeutic Goods Administration
Proposed changes to Required Advisory Statements for Medicine Labels
4 September
Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care
Draft Assisted Reproductive Technology Standards
6 September
Therapeutic Goods Administration
Adoption of International Scientific Guidelines in Australia R01-2026
11 September
Department of Health, Disability and Ageing
Public consultation to help inform a possible “commissioning” approach for part of the Supported Independent Living market
13 September
Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee
Public consultation on items to be considered by the PBAC in November 2026
16 September
Office of the Gene Technology Regulator
Commercial supply of a genetically modified multivalent vaccine for chickens
25 September
Department of Health, Disability and Ageing
Public consultation on items to be considered by the PBAC
16 September
Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care
Draft National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards (third edition)
25 September
Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care
Requirements in the draft National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards to improve the cultural safety and quality of care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
2 October
Therapeutic Goods Administration
Consultation on sharing more information about medical devices
2 October
Medical Services Advisory Committee
- Surgical Procedures for Gender Affirmation in Adults with Gender Incongruence
- Breyanzi (lisocabtagene maraleucel) for the treatment of large B-cell lymphoma
- Implantation of an active middle ear implant (Vibroplasty) for treatment of mixed and conductive hearing loss
- Supervised oral food challenge in patients with suspected food allergy
- Genomic testing for the diagnosis of primary immunodeficiency
- Procedures for the implantation and refill-exchange of the Port Delivery System with ranibizumab to treat neovascular age-related macular degeneration
9 October
House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability
Inquiry into the access to and affordability of medical specialists
16 October
Author details
Charles Maskell-Knight PSM was a senior public servant in the Commonwealth Department of Health for over 25 years before retiring in 2021. He worked as a senior adviser to the Aged Care Royal Commission in 2019-20. He is a member of Croakey Health Media; we thank and acknowledge him for providing this column as a probono service to our readers. Follow on X/Twitter at @CharlesAndrewMK, and on Bluesky at: @charlesmk.bsky.social.
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