Health

In its efforts to cut costs, the agency running the NDIS has taken an adversarial approach that has left participants exhausted and independent reviewers appalled.

While headlines on the so-called tobacco wars focus on firebombings, extortion and gangland jealousies, skyrocketing government taxes on tobacco have long been fuelling the fire behind the scenes.

Letters from the NSW government threatening disciplinary action against doctors striking for better pay and conditions have encouraged walkouts on an unprecedented scale.

As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese issues an election pledge of $1 billion for mental health support funding, professionals on the sector’s frontline are reserving judgement.

Medicare has been a centrepiece of every modern election campaign for Labor. In an interview with The Saturday Paper, the health minister is doubling down, with a focus on Peter Dutton’s record in his role.

Almost a decade after a royal commission recommended the government establish counselling services for child abuse survivors and others, a bungled tender process has failed to establish the helplines.

Weeks before mass salmon deaths were revealed in Tasmania, the government quietly changed the designation of the bacteria killing the fish – which the industry now admits are being sold from infected leases.

Allegations of falsified death certificates at Launceston General Hospital last year led to the referral of dozens of cases to the coroner for investigation. New, exclusive investigations reveal the malpractice goes far deeper than previously reported.

As disease ravages Tasmanian salmon farms, killing thousands of tonnes of fish and threatening other species, the government’s pledge to protect both the industry and the endangered Maugean skate is being called pork-barrelling.

With Robert F. Kennedy Jr nearing confirmation as US health secretary, Australian scientists are already feeling the effects of the new administration’s censorship and research funding cuts.