Nicola Roxon condemns Victorian Government decision to axe VicHealth

5/12/2025

Nicola Roxon, a former Federal Health Minister and the Chair of VicHealth until recently, has written in Croakey Health Media to call on the Victorian Government to retain VicHealth as an independent health promotion agency.

She warns that “all the commercial interests that contribute to the poor health outcomes of Victorians” will be the only winners from the Government’s plan to absorb VicHealth into the Health Department.

Read more reaction from the sector here. VicHealth CEO Professor Anna Peeters AM declined Croakey’s request for comment, and we have also reached out to the new Chair, Ian Hamm.

Nicola Roxon writes:

As a former Commonwealth Health Minister, I can let you in on some fixed truths in health politics:

1. that the costs of the hospital system are voracious and demands of timely treatment and quality health care are relentless
2. that central agencies and Ministers (like Treasurers and Prime Ministers) always want to find savings
3. that Departmental Secretaries always prefer control over policy advice and dislike independent agencies
4. and that short term pressures always risk overwhelming long term priorities, unless you fight relentlessly against this trend.

So it doesn’t surprise me that Helen Silver (a former Secretary of the Premier’s Department) recommended abolishing VicHealth and blithely suggests tipping it back into the Health Department.

What surprised me is that the Victorian Government wants to take this advice.

If it follows this through, it will be a bad short term decision, with a serious long term impact.

Ill-informed decision

Perhaps Helen Silver does not know (she certainly did not ask VicHealth as part of her review) that the growth of chronic disease and the cost of managing it is out of control all around the Western world, including here in Victoria.

Perhaps she did not know that, all around the world, focus is turning to how we tackle this trend to reduce or prevent chronic illness and how we must change systems outside healthcare, if we want to reduce the demands inside that healthcare system.

Even our Commonwealth Government and the Productivity Commission talk about health and wellbeing as a productivity issue for the nation.

And she might not know that VicHealth, an institution of nearly 40 years, has been admired and copied around the country and around the world as a cost effective model grappling with these very trends.

It has incubated successful policies and programs adopted by Victorian Governments over that time in areas relating to tobacco, alcohol, violence against women and racism, to name just a few.

But Ms Silver did know – because she wrote it in her report – that the growth of independent agencies and advisors has grown exponentially in just the last five years and that the cost of this growth to Victoria has been significant.

Yet she recommends closing a well established, world class, world-first public health institution that has served Victorians well since 1987.

Surely it is obvious that putting a tiny agency like VicHealth (with a budget of $45 million) into a huge Health Department (with a budget of over $30 billion) will guarantee its work is swallowed up and ignored.

The urgent demands of hospitals will continue to squeeze out the important work of prevention, as it has always done.

Who benefits?

I know there are a lot of organisations that will be delighted to see VicHealth go – big tobacco companies, the alcohol industry, manufacturers of soft drinks, fast foods or sugary snacks – I just didn’t think I’d see a Labor Government choose to line up with them.

I doubt the Health Minister would volunteer for that photo pic!

All the commercial interests that contribute to the poor health outcomes of Victorians will laugh all the way to the bank, knowing that money wins in the end.

Yesterday, the Government chose to accept some and reject others of Ms Silver’s recommendations – there is still time to move this recommendation back into the right column.

Please, Premier, rethink this decision.

The Honourable Nicola Roxon served as the Commonwealth Health Minister from 2007-2011, and was Chair of VicHealth for five years – her term ended last month. These are her personal views. This article was first published in Croakey Health Media on 5/12/25, and has been republished with permission.