A road map for reducing the health impacts of alcohol and other drugs, public health leadership from South Australia, and the financial and emotional burden on cancer patients from out of pocket costs are among the topics covered this week.
The Zap also raises questions about political donations, and clarifies a point sometimes missing in public debate about planned changes to private health insurance rebates for older Australians.
“Just to be clear, the Government is not proposing to eliminate the ‘longstanding and means tested private health insurance rebate for eligible Australians aged 65 and over’ – rather to align the rebate for people aged 65 and over with the rebate for younger people on the same income,” writes Charles Maskell-Knight PSM.
The quotables?
Public discussion of Australia’s history and identity must be grounded in respect, truth-telling and a recognition of the enduring strength and contribution of First Peoples.”
AND
The Government now has a clear roadmap for action. These are practical, common-sense measures that will reduce harm, protect children and families, and improve the health and safety of communities across Australia.”
Charles Maskell-Knight writes:
The House of Representatives inquiry into the health impacts of alcohol and other drugs tabled its report, including 30 recommendations.
The first was that the Government should “establish a new mandatory alcohol advertising and marketing regulatory framework”.
This should ensure:
- That decisions are made to reduce exposure to children and those at greatest risk
- That the collection and use of personal information for marketing is prohibited unless a person has opted in
- That there is harmonisation with other relevant frameworks (e.g. Broadcasting Services Standards) and across platforms (for example, television, online)
- That there are appropriate monitoring and punishments for non-compliance.
The Alcohol and Drug Foundation welcomed the report, and said “it marks a significant milestone in helping to address contemporary and longstanding issues associated with alcohol and other drug use”.
CEO Dr Erin Lalor AM said the report “will be invaluable to the Government in developing the next National Drug Strategy and planning the future of the Commonwealth’s Drug and Alcohol Program”.
The Cancer Council Australia said the recommendations reflect its “long-standing concerns about the inadequacy of Australia’s current approach to alcohol advertising regulations, which relies primarily on voluntary rules set by the alcohol industry itself”.
The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) also welcomed the report, stressing the role pharmacists play “in medicine safety and in ensuring the safe provision of harm reduction services on the frontline”.
PSA Harm Reduction Champion Krishna Nathwani said “the Take Home Naloxone program has been incredibly successful, with the pilot program demonstrating an estimated three lives saved per day”.
“However, there are still access gaps in the identification and supply of naloxone to people at risk of experiencing or witnessing opioid toxicity.”
Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) CEO Ayla Chorley said “the committee has heard the evidence and made its recommendations”.
“The Government now has a clear roadmap for action. These are practical, common-sense measures that will reduce harm, protect children and families, and improve the health and safety of communities across Australia.”
The current National Drug Strategy expires at the end of the year, while the National Alcohol Strategy has two more years to run.
Given it took the Government three years to respond (half-heartedly) to the Murphy report on gambling, it will need to improve its performance to produce a response to this report before the next National Alcohol Strategy is due.
According to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), in 2024-25 various branches of the Australian Hotels Association and the Australian Hotels and Hospitality Association made political donations totalling $1.823 million: $1.081 million to the ALP, $0.741 million to the Coalition, and $10, 271 to One Nation.
In other alcohol control news, FARE also acknowledged South Australia as the first state in the nation to pass “landmark alcohol delivery reforms, including commonsense safeguards that will help make women and children safer in their homes”.
The Liquor Licensing (Royal Commission Recommendations) Amendment Bill limits alcohol delivery in South Australia to the period from 10am to10pm, and imposes a two-hour safety pause between order and delivery.
FARE CEO Ayla Chorley said “Premier Peter Malinauskas and his Government has shown leadership as the first government in Australia to take this step forward”.
“These measures are common-sense and modest, but the impact they will have cannot be overstated. This is genuinely life-changing reform.”
Ministers and government
Health Minister Mark Butler marked the passage of the Health Legislation Amendment (Improving Choice and Transparency for Private Health Consumers) Bill 2026, which will allow the Government to publish the fees and associated out-of-pocket costs for common medical services provided by individual specialists.
It remains to be seen whether publication of this information will result in the levelling down or levelling up of specialist fees.
The bill also outlaws “product phoenixing”, where private health insurers shut a product and open an identical product with a higher premium.
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) said it was pleased most of its concerns about the new Medical Costs Finder website had been addressed in the legislation, but said it would closely watch implementation of the website and the review process.
AMA President Dr Danielle McMullen said “most importantly, the amendments [to the bill] establish a clear legal basis for information published on the Medical Costs Finder website to be corrected, updated or removed where necessary”.
Minister Butler also announced an expanded PBS listing of Triptorelin for a range of women’s health conditions, including breast cancer, endometriosis and uterine fibrosis.
This would “provide certainty for thousands of women who have been unsure of their treatment options with the uncertainty around the listing of Zoladex 3.6mg Implant, which is currently scheduled to be delisted from the PBS from 1 November 2026 at the request of its pharmaceutical sponsor”, he said.
Last year almost 14,000 patients accessed Zoladex or a comparable treatment on the PBS.
On 17 September, Aged Care Minister Sam Rae introduced amendments to the bill establishing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner to include a mechanism for reviewing some decisions under the Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT).
There was no statement from the Government about the change (other than the supplementary explanatory memorandum tabled in the House of Representatives).
On the same day the Senate referred the bill to a committee inquiry reporting on 9 October, with submissions due by 25 September.
Greens Older People Spokesperson Senator Penny Allman-Payne described the amendments as “tinkering around the edges of [the] broken aged care assessment tool”.
She said “the Integrated Assessment Tool is broken”.
“It systematically denies essential care to older Australians, especially those with cognitive issues, mental health conditions or frailty, and tinkering around the edges won’t fix it,” she said.
“This tool was deployed without adequate testing or consultation, and yet was immediately given absolute power to decide older peoples’ care needs.
“The implementation of the tool has been a disaster, but this amendment shows Labor still doesn’t understand how badly this has gone wrong.”
Older Persons Advocacy Network (OPAN) CEO Craig Gear welcomed the legislation, but warned that further work is needed to resolve longstanding concerns with the IAT.
Gear said that “while further reform remains essential, older people need a mechanism to challenge decisions now”.
“This escalation pathway provides an important interim solution to ensure that older people get the right care at the right time,” Gear said.
“OPAN continues to call for clinical oversight of IAT decisions. These assessments go to the core of an older person’s dignity and the supports they receive, so it is crucial that a human element remains when it comes to decision-making or reviews.”
For more on the introduction of the inflexible IAT, see this excellent article in The Guardian by Melissa Davey.
The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (DHDA) announced the release of the National Health Genomics Policy Framework and Implementation Plan 2026-30.
DHDA said the framework “sets out how Australian governments will work together to further embed genomics into the health system [and] seeks to improve health outcomes while reducing fragmentation and duplication of effort across jurisdictions”.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) issued another safety alert on the dangers of using unapproved peptides. This follows a report of a serious adverse effect linked to a product sold as retatrutide, in which the consumer experienced uncontrollable vomiting, resulting in a torn oesophagus requiring treatment in hospital.
When tested, the product contained no retatrutide, but eight times the amount of semaglutide contained in TGA-approved formulations.
The TGA noted “retatrutide is currently undergoing clinical trials in humans and has not been approved by the TGA or any comparable international regulator”.
“Any retatrutide product accessed outside of clinical trials could be a counterfeit product [and] should not be used outside a clinical trial setting.”
In related news, Ahpra said it has been “investigating unsafe prescribing practices, particularly in high-volume and single-treatment business models… including the provision of unapproved peptides, medicinal cannabis and GLP-1 weight-loss drugs”.
Ahpra said it and the National Boards had published new guidance for practitioners when prescribing off-label, unapproved or medicines to be compounded, and it foreshadowed new conflict of interest guidance, as well as information for patients on what to expect from telehealth.
Medical Board of Australia Chair Dr Susan O’Dwyer said “peptides are like other drugs: a patient may want peptides, but that doesn’t mean they need peptides”.
“It doesn’t mean that peptides are clinically justified. Practitioners need to use their judgement, skills and experience to do what is best for their patient.”
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) published an article reporting on a partnership project with NSW Health using the Lumos Data Asset (Lumos) to examine dementia care and management in NSW primary health care settings.
The AIHW said the project examined how dementia is identified, recorded and managed across general practice, hospital, ambulance, outpatient and death registration data, and provided insights into diagnosis and treatment pathways, gaps in primary health care records and ways to improve dementia data in NSW.
Findings included:
- On any given day, about one in ten people in NSW public and private hospitals were identified with dementia
- For people whose first dementia diagnosis was recorded in hospital data, dementia was not the principal diagnosis in 89 percent of cases, indicating it was not the main reason for the hospital encounter
- Some people with dementia had frequent contact with general practice, hospital or outpatient services, while others had little or no recorded service use each year
- People whose first dementia diagnosis was recorded in general practice generally had more general practitioner attendances and fewer hospital attendances over time than people whose first diagnosis was recorded in hospital data.
The AIHW reported on a project it had commissioned from the University of Melbourne on improving dementia data in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary care.
The AIHW also published a report on health checks and follow-ups for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people examining use of Medicare-funded annual health checks and follow-up services.
It found while only 26 percent of people received a check in 2025, 58 percent had received at least one in the five years ending in 2025. Uptake has increased in major cities since 2016, but has declined in more remote areas.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released June quarter data on people in prison. Findings include:
- The number of people in custody increased by seven percent over the past twelve months
- The proportion of people in custody who have not been sentenced continues to grow, and is now 43 percent
- The imprisonment rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders is over ten times the rate for the general population, and increased 4.5 percent over the last twelve months.
The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care marked September as Sepsis Awareness Month by encouraging people to visit its Sepsis hub.
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) and the National Boards have announced they had begun a review of the codes of conduct that “set out the expectations for safe, ethical and professional behaviour by registered health practitioners”.
They invited “health practitioners, consumers and other stakeholders… to take part in an early scoping survey to help shape the review and ensure updates to the codes are in line with community expectations”. Responses are due by 15 October.
Food Standards Australia and New Zealand opened consultation on a proposal from Tip Top Bakeries to add phytosterols, phytostanols and their esters as a novel food to bread, to provide consumers seeking to lower their cholesterol with an alternative source of plant sterols.
Submissions close on 27 October.
Consumer and public health groups
The Cancer Council said “more Australians are surviving cancer than ever before, but Australia’s legal and financial protections for those undergoing treatment have not kept pace”.
It said a new McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer report exposes a widening gap between the support people with cancer need and what the system actually provides, and called for “urgent reform across our workplace, welfare and health care systems”.
The McCabe Centre report was based on interviews with more than 200 Victorians living with cancer or providing unpaid care, and found:
- Every participant reported out-of-pocket costs
- More than 95 percent reported emotional distress linked to financial hardship
- Almost one in three people with cancer (30 percent) lost income
- Nearly two thirds (64 percent) received no Government financial support
- Among carers, more than three-quarters (78 percent) received no Government financial support and almost one in three (32 percent) lost income.
The Cancer Council called on the Government to:
- Make it easier for people with cancer to access income support. People should be able to access the right payments through Services Australia without excessive paperwork and red tape.
- Strengthen workplace rights for people with cancer and their carers. The current inquiry into the National Employment Standards is an opportunity to update them so they reflect the reality of living with and caring for someone with cancer.
- Plan now for the growing number of Australians living long-term with cancer. People aged 60–79 years are projected to account for 49.3 percent of total five-year prevalence and 42.5 percent of total 30-year prevalence in 2050. Health, social security and aged care systems need to be ready.
COTA called on the Parliament to “reject proposed private health insurance rebate changes or risk putting even greater pressure on millions of pensioners and Australia’s already stretched public health system”.
COTA CEO Patricia Sparrow said “we support the broader work the Government is undertaking on private health insurance and its role in Australia’s healthcare system, but these particular changes risk disproportionately affecting older Australians on modest and fixed incomes”.
Monash University said its researchers had joined a broad consortium of national and international partners to develop 23 Quality Prescribing Indicators to “act as a clinical compass to guide safe and appropriate prescribing for common health conditions in all adults in primary care across Australia”.
It said “while quality prescribing indicators offer a proven way to evaluate and improve medicine use, Australia has lacked an updated, nationally recognised set for primary care since 2006”.
The Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) conferred its President’s Award, for individuals who have made a significant contribution to protect and advance public health, on Minister Butler.
PHAA President and internationally recognised tobacco control expert Professor Caroline Miller noted Australia’s progress in tobacco control and Minister Butler’s leadership and commitment to prioritising health while facing intense tobacco industry lobbying.
Miller said “Minister Butler has held firm on comprehensive and evidence-based tobacco control policy, which will continue to prevent tens of thousands of tobacco related deaths and disease”.
First Nations
The Royal Australian College of GPs (RACGP) issued a statement about a workshop in Orange which marks the halfway point of a nationwide series of 13 face-to-face workshops being delivered by NACCHO in partnership with the College to support implementation of the National Guide to preventive healthcare for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The RACGP said the Guide, developed through collaboration between NACCHO, the RACGP and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health experts across the country, is a leading resource supporting evidence-based, culturally safe preventive health care and provides practical guidance across 21 health topics, including child health, preconception and pregnancy care, diabetes, chronic kidney disease and cancer prevention.
The latest edition “also includes new chapters examining the health impacts of racism and climate change, reflecting challenges acutely affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities”.
Lowitja Institute and the Close the Gap campaign made comments in support of a joint statement by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Katie Kiss and Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman condemning Senator Hanson’s racist remarks targeting First Peoples.
“First Peoples have endured generations of discrimination, exclusion and attempted erasure. Public discussion of Australia’s history and identity must be grounded in respect, truth-telling and a recognition of the enduring strength and contribution of First Peoples,” the statement said.
Trade unions
Allied Health Professions Australia noted the Government’s decision not to move forward with a proposed cap on allied health services for Department of Veterans’ Affairs scheme recipients.
The Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) acknowledged the return of planned birthing services to Biloela (Queensland), but said they are concerned Rural Generalist and GP obstetricians and anaesthetists are not embedded in the service’s current model.
The Colleges said from this week Biloela Hospital was offering care for eligible women with uncomplicated pregnancies, but women requiring more complex maternity care, an epidural, or operative delivery would need to be transferred to a higher-level service.
As the closest higher-level maternity service is Gladstone Hospital, approximately 120 kilometres away, this could potentially create grave risks for mothers and babies requiring urgent care during an obstetric emergency.
The Colleges said they are seeking further detail about Biloela’s medical staffing, clinical governance, emergency response and transfer arrangements, and long-term workforce plan.
The ACRRM also marked the return of birthing services to Cooktown, and “particularly welcomed the Rural Generalist-led model… which draws on the successful restoration of birthing services in Weipa in 2024”.
The Australian Psychological Society (APS), Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association (AIPA) and Centre of Best Practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention issued a joint statement celebrating the ten-year anniversary of the APS Apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The Apology “acknowledged psychology’s role in contributing to the mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the erosion of culture, recognising how the profession had not worked in ways which respected Indigenous knowledges, perspectives and experiences”.
Dr Leda Barnett , Vice Co-Chair of the AIPA, acknowledged the progress made since the Apology, but said she wishes to see more steps taken in the future.
“Since the Apology, there has been movement in the right direction, particularly towards honouring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge and Indigenous psychology within the broader discipline.
“There is still work to do, but progress is being made.”
The PSA said that from 2026 to 2030 it will “deliver a range of activities to further upskill pharmacists in palliative care, broaden pharmacists’ roles in advance care planning, and support expanded career pathways for pharmacists in palliative care”.
This work will build on the success of the National Palliative Care Project 2023-2026, where PSA supported more than 2,500 pharmacists through a foundation training program in palliative care.
The PSA also said it was joining with Dementia Australia to offer an accredited educational webinar for pharmacists during Dementia Action Week (21-27 September) “to help them identify high-risk medicines, evaluate the benefits and limitations of pharmacological treatments for behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia, and support safe deprescribing across different care settings”.
Occupational Therapy Australia also marked Dementia Action Week with a statement on the role occupational therapists played in helping in helping people living with dementia continue to participate in everyday life.
The RACGP used World Patient Safety Day to “once again call for an increase in patient Medicare rebates for longer consultations to ensure all Australians can receive the complex care they need”.
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians informed members that the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission had extended Dr Sharmila Chandran’s suspension as a responsible person of the College until 4 December.
The Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) marked World Patient Safety Day on 17 September, which this year has the theme Safe Care for Life, with a focus on patients with non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases.
RDAA President Professor Sarah Chalmers said “for these patients – who can require frequent attendance at hospitals and other care settings due to their condition – open communication with their entire healthcare team is incredibly important”.
“It is crucial that our patients feel comfortable to let us know when something doesn’t seem right, ask us to explain something again when they don’t understand a medication instruction or treatment pathway, or know they can tell us when a medication or other care option doesn’t seem to be working.”
Chalmers said “truly connected care critically relies on having a seamless digital health network to enable patient health data to be shared in real time between hospitals, general practices and other health settings…but in Australia, this component of the health system needs significant further development”.
Industry groups
Private Healthcare Australia (PHA, the private health insurers lobby group) said it “welcomed the Government’s move to address excessive fees charged by specialist doctors with a range of potential measures including caps on fees and incentives to encourage more bulk billing”.
But it added that “the Government must go further to address the broader rise in all specialist doctors’ fees, not just the extreme outliers”.
PHA noted that the DHDA consultation paper said the average out-of-pocket cost for an initial specialist consultation surged 67 percent from $95 in 2016 to $159 in 2025 – more than twice the 32 percent increase in the Consumer Price Index – while in-hospital gap payments for privately insured patients also rose 72 percent between 2019 and 2025, with a median medical gap of $323 per episode in 2025.
PHA CEO Dr Rachel David said “excessive fees are the sharpest edge of a much broader affordability problem: specialist fees and gaps across the market have been creeping up much faster than inflation for years”.
“The next phase of reform must address the broader inflation in specialist fees, strengthen upfront disclosure of all likely costs, make meaningful fee comparisons easy for patients and give GPs better information to support affordable referrals.”
The Members Health Fund Alliance (the peak body for private health insurers which do not distribute profits) said the “Government should tackle the inflated medical device prices it sets, instead of increasing private health insurance costs for millions of older Australians”.
Members Health called on the Government to:
- Retain the longstanding and means tested private health insurance rebate for eligible Australians aged 65 and over
- Establish ongoing international prostheses benchmarking, to compare Australian prices with overseas markets
- Increase prostheses price transparency so consumers and policymakers can identify unjustified price differences
- Prohibit hidden financial incentives between medical device suppliers and third parties.
Just to be clear, the Government is not proposing to eliminate the “long standing and means tested private health insurance rebate for eligible Australians aged 65 and over” – rather to align the rebate for people aged 65 and over with the rebate for younger people on the same income.
Medibank Group released its 2026 Annual Report, showing a net profit after tax of $638 million, up 2.9 percent from the previous year.
Medibank’s wholly owned health provider Amplar Health provided 4.2 million GP consultations through 169 GP and medical clinics.
The profits from health delivery comprised 12 percent of total profit, up from 9.4 percent in the previous year.
Parliamentary committees
The Senate Community Affairs Committee began an inquiry into the Private Health Insurance (National Joint Replacement Register Levy) Amendment Bill 2026, which removes the $5,000 cap on the levy payable in respect of any prosthesis to allow more revenue to be obtained from prostheses sold in higher volumes.
Submissions are due by 28 September.
International organisations
The OECD published a report “examining the potential consequences of future pandemics on population health, health system resilience and the economy across 51 OECD, EU/EEA and G20 countries, using advanced epidemiological and economic modelling techniques and scenario-based analyses”.
It said “the central message is clear: in the OECD, investing, on average, almost $US6 PPP [purchasing power parity] per capita per year in pandemic preparedness and response is a smart investment for both public health and economic resilience”.
The report included simulations assessing the impact of five unmitigated disease outbreak scenarios, including Ebola-like, avian influenza-like, influenza A-like, coronavirus-like and measles-like outbreaks.
It concluded “without treatments or vaccines available at scale, unmitigated outbreaks could claim the lives of between one percent of the population in a coronavirus-like outbreak and more than five percent in an influenza A-like outbreak within the first nine months”.
“Critical care capacity in OECD countries could be exhausted, on average, within one to two months. Surge capacity, the ability of health systems to expand beyond normal capacity, can provide only temporary relief”.
Finally
Browsing the AEC website to identity political donations from the alcohol industry, I also came across donations from HCF, the private health insurer, which in 2024-25 donated $33,000 each to the ALP and the Liberal party.
Subsection 28(2) of the Private Health Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act relevantly provides “the assets of a health benefits fund must not be applied… for any purpose other than… meeting policy liabilities and other liabilities, or expenses, incurred for the purposes of the business of the fund”.
(Insurers registered as for-profit entities are not subject to this constraint.)
I don’t believe a donation to a political party can be characterised as “an expense incurred for the purposes of the business of the fund”.
I asked APRA and HCF for comment.
HCF told me “HCF complies with all applicable legal obligations in relation to any political contributions”.
I hope to bring you the APRA response next week.
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.
Office of the Gene Technology Regulator
Commercial supply of a genetically modified multivalent vaccine for chickens
25 September
Department of Health, Disability and Ageing
Medical Research Future Fund Reducing Health Inequities Mission – Consultation on the Roadmap and Implementation Plan
25 September
Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care
Draft National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards (third edition)
25 September
Senate Community Affairs Committee
Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) – Parliament of Australia
25 September
Senate Community Affairs Committee
Private Health Insurance (National Joint Replacement Register Levy) Amendment Bill 2026
28 September
Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care
Revised Australian Guidelines for the Prevention and Control of Infection in Health Care
29 September
National Health and Medical Research Council
Nutrient Reference Values – Public Consultation on Draft Recommendations – Vitamin B6
Nutrient Reference Values – Public Consultation on Draft Recommendations for Sodium
30 September
Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee
Rapid Review of PBS medicines for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis
1 October
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
Therapeutic Goods Administration
- Proposed amendments to the Poisons Standard in relation to 4-methylbenzylidene camphor (4-MBC)
- Proposed amendments to the Poisons Standard in relation to nitrous oxide
- Other proposed amendments to the Poisons Standard
12 October
Department of Health, Disability and Ageing
New Framework Planning and NDIS Supports
14 October
Medicare Benefits Schedule Review Advisory Committee
MBS Time Tiered Items Draft Report
15 October
Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and the National Boards
Scoping survey to help shape the review of the codes of conduct
15 October
House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability
Inquiry into the access to and affordability of medical specialists
16 October
Department of Health, Disability and Ageing
Specialist Affordability: Options to Address Excessive Fees
19 October
Therapeutic Goods Administration
Additional public consultation on amending the Poisons Standard regarding ethylene oxide, propylene oxide and epichlorohydrin
26 October
Food Standards Australia and New Zealand
Proposed addition of phytosterols, phytostanols and their esters as a novel food to bread
27 October
Senate Community Affairs Committee
2025 National Health Reform Agreement with Western Australia
27 November
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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