This report measures our national well-being across five key areas. Health trends are not improving
In 2023, Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced the government would measure what matters to the well-being of Australians as a complement to the traditional economic measures in the national accounts.
Recent articles in Health
18 September 2025
Climate code blue: Why hospitals must lead the healing of our planet
Hospitals must lead – not only for better patient outcomes, but for the healing of our planet. The next chapter in healthcare leadership will be written by those who can drive change for both.
17 September 2025
Volunteer doctors describe how Israeli troops ‘deliberately targeted’ Gaza children
“How is it possible that, in this small hospital, four children are lying here with gunshot wounds to the head – all admitted within the past 48 hours?” said one US trauma surgeon.
13 September 2025
The long-term damaging effects of COVID
Just as the Great Plague ravaged Europe and changed the course of history, we face a different society and future because of the COVID pandemic. Differing responses to dealing with the virus reveal gaping holes in the social fabric.
12 September 2025
Aged care crises continue under Labor
It has been four years since the final report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety was tabled in federal parliament.
7 September 2025
Health workers in the US are demanding the resignation of Robert Kennedy Jr
When I worked in the US, I visited the Centre for Disease Control on a number of occasions. The faculty members were extraordinarily competent and influential, because of the universal and deserved respect for the CDC.
5 September 2025
As Florida ends all childhood vaccine mandates, doctors fear preventable diseases will 'come roaring back'
Florida's decision to erase school vaccine requirements will cause preventable illness and death, said one immunologist. Not just for kids in Florida, for whole communities, of all ages, across the country.
1 September 2025
The next pandemic is 'an epidemiological certainty'
The next pandemic disease outbreak is already on the way. Only its identity remains a surprise.
28 August 2025
Why the NDIS inevitably went pear-shaped!
I was a part of the old (underfunded, unfair, fragmented, and inefficient, according to the Productivity Commission) state-run system.
26 August 2025
Lowering tobacco tax to make illegal tobacco sales 'disappear overnight': At last we have a proposed figure and it’s an absolute doozie
Last week Ross Fitzgerald wrote a piece here titled Time to get real on taxing cigarettes and restricting vapes.
23 August 2025
Time to get real on taxing cigarettes and restricting vapes
Australia’s cigarettes are now the most expensive in the world. Excise has been increased cumulatively by over 340% in the past 20 years, clearly helping to depress consumption for many years.
20 August 2025
Australia has 120 health workforce policies. But with no national plan, we’re missing the big picture
Australia’s health workforce is under pressure. Wait times are growing. Burnout is rising. Yet the country is awash in policy – just not the kind that solves these problems at the root.
14 August 2025
Israel bars entry of specialist medical teams into Gaza
As the world leaders produce yet more words and pass yet more resolutions on the genocide on Gaza, more than 12,000 children now are severely, dangerously malnourished as Israel continues to deny sufficient food into the Strip.
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