Much of the post-shuffle focus in health has been on the new Minister, Tanya Plibersek (The Australian has her prioritising dental reform, while the Sydney Morning Herald has her bedding down the health reform agenda).

But let’s not forget that many portfolios are important for health (some of which are mentioned at the bottom of this post).

So, what do we know about the Member for Sydney? It’s clear that she is likely to have a broad perspective on health that ranges beyond health services. As a shadow minister, she covered the portfolios of childcare, work and family, women, youth, and human services and housing. As a Minister, she has held the portfolios of Housing, the Status of Women, Human Services, and Social Inclusion.

Below are some more biographical details, as well as some post-shuffle analysis from Crikey Health and Medical Panel members, who were asked:

1. What useful advice might the outgoing Health Minister Nicola Roxon give her successor?
2. What have been Nicola Roxon’s most significant achievements as Health Minister?
3. What have been the most disappointing aspects of her time as Minister?
4. Your overall assessment of Minister Roxon’s tenure?
5. What should be the top three priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

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Some background on the new Health Minister

Her own website notes:

•  She was born on December 2, 1969. Her parents are from Slovenia (they emigrated in the 1950s). She also speaks Slovene and German, and was elected as a federal MP in 1998.

• Her local priorities: health – saving Medicare; education; affordable housing in the inner city; local environment; and a second Sydney airport.

• Her national priorities: affordable housing; balancing work and family, accessible health care and education; an inclusive and cohesive society; a clean environment; affordable childcare & aged care; republic; equality for all and reconciliation.

• Her employment history: NSW Ministry for the Status & Advancement of Women – Domestic Violence Unit; Office of Senator Bruce Childs; Women’s Officer, University of Technology.

• Her education: Master of Politics and Public Policy, Macquarie University; Bachelor of Arts (Communications) (Honours)
University of Technology, Sydney; Jannali Girls High School – Dux

Her ALP website notes that she grew up in the southern suburbs of Sydney, the youngest of three children. She and her partner Michael Coutts-Trotter, (a former DG of NSW Education Department) have three children, Anna, Joseph and Louis.

We also know that the Minister supports gay marriage, and is fond of bushwalking and 18th Century novels.

At Open Australia, you can sign up for an email update of her Parliamentary contributions, and a compilation of recent Parliamentary statements.

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Analysis from Crikey Health and Medical Panel members

Dr Tony Hobbs
A rural GP obstetrician in Cootamundra, NSW, who chaired the external Reference Group developing Australia’s first National Primary Health Care Strategy, and a past chair of the Australian General Practice Network.

1. What useful advice might Nicola Roxon give the new health minister?

Keep the vision of a health system built on an integrated, connected Primary Health Care sector at the forefront of your thinking: read Barbara Starfield’s work.

2. What have been Nicola Roxon’s most significant achievements as health minister?

A. The prevention agenda, particularly with regard to cigarette smoking.
B. The development of a National Primary Health Care system – yet to be fully realised.

3. What have been the most disappointing aspects of her time as Minister?

The failure to secure support for governance reform to enable the Federal Government to assume 100% responsibility for policy/funding of the primary health care system: without this the vision of an integrated, more connected primary health care system that improves access & reduces inequitable health outcomes is problematic.

4. Your overall assessment of her tenure?

A Minister who has been keen to engage & listen; not afraid to challenge some of the more difficult problems (eg reform of health workforce to enable more appropriate use of skills & competencies); 10+/10 on tobacco control

5. What should be the top three priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

A. As articulated in response to question 1.
B. That there needs to be a much broader approach to “health”: that is the social determinants of health need to be considered across all portfolios of government to address inequitable health outcomes.
C. Don’t forget that 33% of the Australian population live outside our major cities & endure significantly worse health outcomes.

***

Dr Andrew Pesce
Sydney obstetrician and gynaecologist and former federal president of the Australian Medical Association

1. What useful advice might Nicola Roxon give the new health minister?

As a priority, appoint a senior independent advisor to her office. As a minister with little health system experience, she needs someone with experience in commonwealth and state health to help her steer through the minefields of the various Departments of Health. She must not be over-reliant on DoHA advisors.

2. What have been Nicola Roxon’s most significant achievements as health minister?

Maintaining some forward momentum with health reform despite the obstacles of inertia of the federated health system and conflicts between multiple stakeholders. All stakeholders have achieved some gains, whilst none have achieved everything they wanted. Creation of Medicare Locals opens an opportunity for systemic improvement in primary care.

3. What have been the most disappointing aspects of her time as Minister?

The inability to move significantly to a single funding model for the Australian health system. System reform will continue to be hampered by the ability to cost shift rather than develop solutions to problems in service delivery. The Superclinics rollout has become an expensive, poorly targeted campaign which appears focussed on electoral politics rather than getting services where they are most needed.

4. Your overall assessment of her tenure?

A pragmatist health minister in an era of contested health reform. Achieved some outcomes for all stakeholders, but will not be regarded as a hero by any. For those who criticise her, name a health minister who has achieved more change in the health system in the last 30 years?

5. What should be the top three priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

A) Focus on breaking down the barriers between the hospital and community based health providers.

B) Develop and pursue funding mechanisms which promote outcomes rather than services

C) Move towards a single funder as a prerequisite for A and B

Other comments: In the current drive for a balanced budget, Plibersek will have to decide to what extent she prioritises structural health reform over budgetary savings. You don’t get something for nothing. Real reform will require some initial investment and increase in expenditure to promote acceptance of change by practicing clinicians.

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Professor Stephen Leeder
Director, The Menzies Centre for Health Policy, Chair, Western Sydney Local Health District

1. What useful advice might Nicola Roxon give the new health minister?

Don’t even think of restructuring.  Lie down till the feeling passes.

2. What have been Nicola Roxon’s most significant achievements as health minister?

Devolution of hospitals, Medicare Locals and (amazingly) taking prevention seriously.

3. What have been the most disappointing aspects of her time as Minister?

Having to contend with the Rudd upheaval given that he had taken over health reform before becoming foreign minister.

4. Your overall assessment of her tenure?

Humane, tenacious, clear thinking, brave.

5. What should be the top three priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

Continue with current reform agenda.
Consolidate Medicare Locals.
Ensure e-health pays for change management to succeed.

***

Robert Wells
Director, Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute and Menzies Centre for Health Policy, ANU

1. What useful advice might Nicola Roxon give the new health minister, Tanya Plibersek?

Allow all the froth and bubble from the health reform process to dissipate before embarking on any new reforms.
Call the states and  hospitals to account for all the new funding that will be injected by the Commonwealth through to 2020

2. What have been Nicola Roxon’s most significant achievements as health minister?

Primary care focus
Getting states to agree to publish performance data

3. What have been the most disappointing aspects of her time as Minister?

eHealth
Electronic health record

4. Your overall assessment of her tenure?

She did a good job trying to deliver reforms that were largely poorly conceived and effectively nobbled by vested interests, especially the states

5. What should be the top three priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

Sort out private health insurance beyond just taxing the well off – make the billions invested work for Australia, not just private funds & hospitals

Proceed with the primary care reform agenda, especially defining a population health role for Medicare Locals.

Ensure that Medicare Locals are adequately resourced and review some of the ridiculous timeframes for their establishment and delivery.

***

Mike Daube
Professor of Health Policy, Curtin University

Nicola Roxon deserves the highest praise as a champion for prevention, despite all the pressures of a complex reform agenda.

Plain packaging is of course just the tip of the iceberg – but the tobacco industry’s desperate opposition confirms that it may well be the single most significant piece of tobacco control legislation we have seen in decades, with other countries looking to follow Australia’s lead.

This is a Minister who recognized the importance of prevention, commissioned the Preventative Health Strategy to set out the strategies, provided substantial additional funding to the States (with demanding targets), established the Australian National Preventative Health Agency, took on the alcohol industry over alcopops, and made Australia the world leader in tobacco with a comprehensive program, from the long-overdue Tackling Indigenous Smoking Initiative to plain packaging – the tobacco industry’s worst nightmare come true.

Of course there is always more to be done; but she has given prevention a massive boost, and it is good that she will maintain her involvement in tobacco from her role as Attorney General.

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Associate Professor Peter Sainsbury
University of Sydney School of Public Health

1. What useful advice might Nicola Roxon give the new health minister, Tanya Plibersek?

Try not to be as anonymous as I was.

Get the Private Health Insurance Rebate amendment through parliament

Don’t fold (nearly) every time industry squawks

Start tackling the social determinants of health and not just personal behaviours

Make the NHMRC more active in its policy and advisory roles.

2. What have been Nicola Roxon’s most significant achievements as health minister?

Difficult to think what she’s achieved at all apart from pushing on with the plain cigarette packaging.

3. What have been the most disappointing aspects of her time as Minister?

Blandness

4. Your overall assessment of her tenure?

Grey

5. What should be the top three priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

See Q 1

 ***

Health economist Professor Gavin Mooney

1. What useful advice might Nicola Roxon give the new health minister, Tanya Plibersek?

Instil some sense of priority setting into the system and better still base this on the critically informed preferences of the citizenry thereby shifting the power base within health care.

2. What have been Nicola Roxon’s most significant achievements as health minister?

Not sure.

3. What have been the most disappointing aspects of her time as Minister?

The reform of primary care is very disappointing. It desperately needs to be radically reformed and will now not be again for many years. Superclinics are silly. Medicare Locals, if they had been handled well, might have been great but they have been stuffed up big time. What an opportunity missed!

4. Your overall assessment of her tenure?

She unfortunately seemed not to be up to the job or maybe she was badly advised but the reality and the promise were too often rather far apart.

5. What should be the top three priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

Being a minister for health and not just for health care and thereby embracing the social determinants of health; equity especially socioeconomic and ethnic; within health care recognising the non hospital parts of her responsibilities.

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Professor Alan Rosen
Psychiatrist who holds positions with the Brain & Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney, and School of Public Health, University of Wollongong.

1. What useful advice might Nicola Roxon give the new health minister?

Don’t keep telling the mental health community that they can’t agree among themselves about what is worth doing, so we are going to postpone doing anything indefinitely, or they might get pissed off and give up on you. She wouldn’t dared have said this to the surgeons.

2. What have been Nicola Roxon’s most significant achievements as health minister?

Cigarette packaging. Terrific.

3. What have been the most disappointing aspects of her time as Minister?

Not providing any teeth to the TGA, nor any real penalties for transgression by the snake-oil brigade. Denial that self regulation just won’t work.

She got too close to the Pharmacy Guild (representing owner and  pharmaceutical company interests) particularly regarding the  tolerating of over-pricing of pharmaceuticals, to the exclusion of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists & Managers Australia (APESMA) & the Consumers Health Forum.

Providing no funding stream for community health services, not appearing to understand the difference between primary health and specialised community health, including community mental health.

4. Your overall assessment of her tenure?

Disappointing, unsympathetic to mental health.

5. What should be the top three priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

Insist that DOHA should set some real ten-year targets in the DOHA 10-year road map for mental health, which presently proposes no destinations whatsoever.

Overhaul DOHA.

Other comments: Were our earlier comments at Croakey just wishful thinking or prophetic? We long knew Roxon wanted to be Attorney General. As I stated in Croakey in February:

Can we appeal to Julia Gillard, with her family and political mental health experience and to Mark Butler, with all the expert advice he is receiving, who both should know better?

Nicola Roxon probably needs a radical re-education or a change of portfolio.

The Federal Government needs to heed its own Health Reform Commission findings and come up with a strategy to preserve and regrow what is left of community health and community mental health services.

This must include an effective funding enhancement and protection strategy, particularly for salaried community based services. At the same time, fee-for-service mental health professionals’ time, presently concentrated in more affluent areas, needs to be more equitably rationed and targeted.

Maybe that is why the West Australians may be onto a good thing by removing the entire mental health budget from WA Health and putting all of its disbursements at the discretion of the relatively new Mental Health Commission.

 ***

Paul Grogan
Director, Advocacy, Cancer Council Australia

1. What useful advice might Nicola Roxon give the new health minister, Tanya Plibersek?

Keep pushing Treasury to fund an expansion to the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program in the 2012-13 budget.

(Oh, and Tanya, when you wrote this article back in 2007 you, like everyone else, probably expected the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program to by now have added more than just 50-year-olds to its still very limited reach: Didn’t we all?)

2. What have been Nicola Roxon’s most significant achievements as health minister?

Minister Roxon will always be remembered for taking on the tobacco companies over plain packaging before any other health minister in the world. And rightly so. She also oversaw a major shift towards chronic disease prevention and approved more than half a billion dollars in capital funds to develop new regional cancer services – the first time a federal minister allocated substantial money to improve the delivery of cancer services in regional Australia. There have been other achievements, and Minister Roxon was always accessible to Cancer Council Australia and interested in our views, but those are the standouts.

3. What have been the most disappointing aspects of her time as Minister?

The lack of progress in bowel cancer screening – although this was a funding decision and therefore not strictly within the Health portfolio’s remit (assuming Health put up funding proposals, which they probably did).

In 2007, we were also optimistic that the new government might have done more in obesity control, such as protecting Australian children from junk food advertising.

But, two years since the self-regulatory advertising code (happily introduced by the two peak bodies for the industries that sell the most popular junk food items), our kids are still being exposed to the same level of junk food advertising as they were in 2009.

4. Your overall assessment of her tenure?

Overall it’s an impressive legacy. It will be a hard act to follow, but Health Minister Plibersek will gain great admiration from the cancer control community if she convinces Treasury to fund an expansion of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program in the 2012-13 budget.

5. What should be the top three priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

Expand the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program. As far as cancer control policy at the national level goes, this ought to be priorities 1, 2 and 3. The program’s limited reach – it’s available as a one-off test to people turning 50, 55 and 65, rather than to all Australians aged 50 and over every two years – is the biggest hole in the national cancer control framework.

Has everyone forgotten that phasing in the program was a 2004 election commitment made by then Shadow Health Minister Julia Gillard, when the new health minister was still a backbencher? We live in hope…

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Ian McAuley
Public sector management and policy expert

1. What useful advice might Nicola Roxon give the new health minister?

Listen to industry lobbies, but take advice from professional economists

2. What have been Nicola Roxon’s most significant achievements as health minister?

Restoring state hospital funding to a more reasonable level

3. What have been the most disappointing aspects of her time as Minister?

Appointing a reform commission of health insiders

4. Your overall assessment of her tenure?

Scorecards on prominent ministers – Neal Blewett 9/10, Michael Wooldridge 2/10, Tony Abbott 3/10, Nicola Roxon 4/10

5. What should be the top three priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

Re-structure programs around users, not providers

Get rid of private health insurance

Rationalise consumer co-payments

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Associate Professor Gawaine Powell Davies
CEO, UNSW Research Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity

1. What useful advice might Nicola Roxon give the new health minister?

Give the Medicare Locals a chance, with flexible funding, strong links to aged care and (yes) a new name

2. What have been Nicola Roxon’s most significant achievements as health minister?

Implementing change. We had forgotten it was possible.

3. What have been the most disappointing aspects of her time as Minister?

Taking a narrow approach to reform, and then getting done over by the states. Presiding over the birth of a brand new split within primary health care.

4. Your overall assessment of her tenure?

Generally good. She has been firm and got things done, and allowed professions other than medicine more time in the limelight. It is a shame that Kevin Rudd had such an influence on the reforms.

5. What should be the top three priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

Get the new system working. Support the new structures, and give them their head. Give us a national dental service.

Other comments: We will miss her, but Tanya Plibersek should be a worthy successor.

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Mary Chiarella
Professor of Nursing, Sydney Nursing School, University of Sydney

1. What useful advice might Nicola Roxon give the new health minister, Tanya Plibersek?

There’s not a big difference between 40/60 and 60/40 (referring to the state/federal funding split for public hospitals)

2. What have been Nicola Roxon’s most significant achievements as health minister?

National registration for health professionals

A strong focus on the health workforce as a whole

A much more inclusive style of leadership for all health professionals, not just doctors

3. What have been the most disappointing aspects of her time as Minister?

The obstacles to new maternity service reforms

The lack of progress on primary health care

4. What should be the top three priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

Maternity service reform

Primary health care reform and a workforce that can deliver a primary health care agenda

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Justine Caines
Consumer health advocate

1. What useful advice might Nicola Roxon give the new health minister, Tanya Plibersek?

Have your wheaties every morning you’ll need them!

2. What have been Nicola Roxon’s most significant achievements as health minister?

Her tough stance re plain packaging of tobacco products

3. What have been the most disappointing aspects of her time as Minister?

That she relented to powerful vested interests in health, during the reform process. The rhetoric of the importance of consumers did not match the health reform realised.

Hospitals do not equal health. For 20 years we have been talking about preventative health and reducing unnecessary interactions with hospitals. This was not achieved.

The Maternity Services Review was a perfect example.  A major reform (greatest volume area in health) with real potential and yet no follow through on successful implementation. A year after funding has been realised, no funding has been allocated to support implementation. Rural and remote maternity services are still in a parlous state. A very small amount of money could see real value gained in what was a $120M initiative.

4. Your overall assessment of her tenure?

Nicola Roxon is a tough and talented politician, she managed a very difficult portfolio. The success of health reform, or in this case not, does not rest entirely with her as Kevin Rudd was such a controlling PM and it was evident that more progressive politics was stifled.

5. What should be the top three priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

Health not just hospitals

Meaningful consumer engagement

Addressing major health inequity (funding and access)

 ***

Professor David Penington
Melbourne University

1. What useful advice might Nicola Roxon give the new health minister?

Good luck – You’ll need it, particularly in your relations with the Treasurer!

2. What have been Nicola Roxon’s most significant achievements – and disappointments – as health minister?

Shoring up the bureaucratic and political control of all health services and improving government control processes in NSW and Queensland with better Board structures and introducing the Victorian activity based funding, and additional Commonwealth funding.

But on the negative side, doing nothing to ensure ongoing change, building on continuing advances in medical science and major changes in the potential to bring primary care and hospitals into real collaboration.

She has totally ignored the potential of University Faculties of Medicine and Health Sciences which have been seen as the principal instruments for major reform in very many advanced nations, and particularly in the U.K., Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Singapore and the US.

4. Your overall assessment of her tenure?

A time of sadly missed opportunities which will need to be revisited in a few short years, as greatly enhanced productivity will be essential because of inevitably rising cost associated both with an ageing population and inevitable demand for access to new services arising from advances in medical science and technology.

Better ways to deliver appropriate services can only be developed with academic input across the whole range of health sciences and will not come from Government Committees and Commissions!

5. What should be the top three priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

Select advisers wisely with some who have in depth experience in health services – both Primary and hospital based.

Needs to develop real understanding of the changing face of health services internationally and develop a close relationship with the leadership of NHMRC.

University Faculties provide access to the health professions which is not constrained by the inevitable self-serving processes characterising the AMA and union groupings.

***

Dr Michael Vagg
Physician, Clinical Senior Lecturer at Deakin University School of Medicine

Nicola Roxon entered the Health portfolio with a reputation as one of the smartest and most ambitious of the new crop of Rudd Govt ministers.

It quickly seemed that she was a victim of micromanagement from above and despite being handed responsibility for overseeing a huge program of reform, very little of what was promised has been achieved.

While never really looking out of her depth on policy issues, her tenure as health minister will probably be remembered as one of timidity in the face of growing calls to action in mental health, primary care and the hospital sector.

She has been unable to find a workable way through the difficult issues of insuring independent midwives, and Medicare Locals are still a puzzle even to those who have set them up and are running them.

The Superclinic program has been an expensive failure at reallocating primary care resources, which was exactly what happened with the polyclinics in the UK which inspired the scheme.

Nicola Roxon will be remembered by doctors and pharmacists as the health minister who more than any other has used PBS listings as a political football in Cabinet. Who knows whether this is a fair assessment or not, but that will be legacy at the coalface.

Overall, for a Labour Health Minister it is hard not to be disappointed in Roxon’s tenure, though she has been competent enough.

The utter failure of the hospitals reform push as well as half-baked outcomes from other supposedly key policy initiatives is not really good enough for a minister who has had an uninterrupted run at it for 4 years.

***

A public health policy expert
(Who wishes to remain anonymous)

1. What useful advice might Nicola Roxon give the new health minister?

Expand investment in prevention, rethink the fundamentals of Medicare Locals. (Additional comment added at contributor’s request on 14 Dec): Consider renewal of DOHA leadership.

2. What have been the most disappointing aspects of her time as Minister?

Rejection of well thought through prevention advice eg traffic lights front of pack labelling

3. Your overall assessment of her tenure?

Not too bad, but lots of missed opportunities.  Got caught by the bureaucrats and doctors – the unholy alliance.

4. What should be the top three priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

Prevention, primary health care, dental health

 ***

Policy analyst
(Who wishes to remain anonymous)

1. What useful advice might Nicola Roxon give the new health minister?

Look at what Tony Abbott did as health minister –  seriously – and think about how and when he was successful.  Choose your key priorities carefully and try to achieve a limited number in a big way rather than many, many in small but unimportant ways.

2.  What have been Nicola Roxon’s most significant achievements as health minister?

Great start on smoking prevention, including Indigenous smoking (hiring Tom Calma a great idea).  Very steady minister, seemed to help keep people around her very calm, her office seemed to know how to prioritise issues, separating the important from the unimportant.  Had the support and confidence of the respective Prime Ministers.

3. What have been the most disappointing aspects of her time as Minister?

Still no real  progress in Indigenous health, although lots of words about it.  Has consistently over-estimated the ability of her Department to deliver on programs (that was nice and supportive of her, but not always helpful). They would create various NHMRC guidelines but almost never disseminate them properly.

4. Your overall assessment of her tenure?

Good, strong, but only a B+ because she was much better at keeping the ship afloat than making any dramatic changes.  That’s better than many ministers, however.

5. What should be the top priorities for the new Minister Plibersek?

Indigenous health

Using the new broadband and telecommunications properly – much work to be done there.

***

Ron Batagol
Pharmacy and drug information consultant

1. Most significant achievements of Minister Roxon?

Setting up Discussion Papers on Primary Health Care, Preventive Care and Hospital Reform. Streamlining and simplifying some aspects of the operation of the PBS at a practical level.

2. Most disappointing aspects of her tenure?

Taking too much advice from bureaucrats and not enough from representatives of the health professionals who work in the field, especially in setting up eHealth (getting an accurate patient record with people selectively opting in – who thought that one up?)

Overly complicated legalistic procedures for setting up Medicare Locals.

Super Clinics often set up in the wrong locations which already have busy clinics anyway!!

Not standing up to Cabinet and spending an initial 6 months trying to balance the Health Budget by overriding the PBAC on which drugs should be on the PBS. Tinkering with the psychological management and referrals by GPs.

3. Overall assessment

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

4. Three top priorities for the new Minister Plibersek

(i) Urgently re-examine eHealth Project before it is rolled out with a major weakness in the integrity of the electronic  patient records

(ii) Set up a system with appropriate funding to have ongoing post-graduate training for community doctors in Emergency and other selected hospital Departments to enable them to better take up care of chronically ill patients within the community rather than in hospital.

(iii) Review operations of TGA to ensure it is more responsive to, and takes advice from, health professionals and the community  eg. Complaints mechanisms, Better use of external Advisory Committees (eg. the now defunct one on Medicines in Pregnancy was not asked to fully review safety issues for specific drugs used in pregnancy after 1999)

Other comments: Ensure that the proposed Senate Review of the 5th. Community Pharmacy Agreement takes place, so that all professional pharmacy bodies have real input into decisions involving professional pharmacy programmes.

***

Beyond health services

Meanwhile, disability care, aged care and mental health are among the Government’s reform priorities for 2012, according to the Prime Minister’s announcement of the reshuffle.

Early childhood and education also are tagged as priorities. Brendan O’Connor will become Minister for Human Services and Minister Assisting for School Education. The PM said: “This appointment of an additional Minister working on School Education also reflects the depth of the Government’s reform agenda to improve the quality and equity of school education.”

In her new role as Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon will not only remain involved in the tobacco packaging legislation, but will also take on responsibility for Privacy and Freedom of Information.

Hawker Britton has more details on the reshuffle.

Other Cabinet Ministers whose responsibilities have a bearing on health:

• Senator Chris Evans, Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research

• Senator Stephen Conro, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Digital Productivity

• Simon Crean, Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government

• Anthony Albanese, Minister for Infrastructure and Transport

• Jenny Macklin MP Minister for Families, Community

• Tony Burke, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities

• Peter Garrett MP Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth

• Robert McClelland, Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness, Minister for Emergency Management

• Greg Combet, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Minister for Industry and Innovation

• Bill Shorten, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations

• Mark Butler, Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, Minister for Social Inclusion, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Mental Health Reform

Outer Ministry

• Kate Ellis, Minister for Employment Participation, Minister for Early Childhood and Childcare

• Warren Snowdon, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, Minister for Indigenous Health

• Julie Collins, Minister for Community Services, Minister for Indigenous Employment and Economic Development, Minister for the Status of Women

Parliamentary Secretaries

• Catherine King, Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing, Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure and Transport