John Menadue

Many of you will have read one or more of the policy essays published earlier this year as part of a series on “Fairness, Opportunity and Security: Filling the Policy Vacuum”, which is now also the title of the book of those essays.

Health ministers may be in office but they are seldom in power, says John Menadue. The former head of the Australian Public Service, who also chaired the NSW Health Council and SA Generational Health Review says a Health Reform Commission could outflank the vested interests and stagnant imagination.

Lobbying now represents a growing and serious corruption of good governance, writes former top mandarin John Menadue. Departments need to return to being independent policy-powerhouses, with protections against influence from secret special interests.