Menzies Centre for Health Policy

The Menzies Centre for Health Policy is a collaborative centre between The Australian National University and the University of Sydney. It aims to provide the Australian people with a better understanding of their health system and what it provides for them. The Centre encourages informed debate about how Australians can influence health policy to ensure that it is consistent with their values and priorities and is able to deliver safe, high quality health care that is sustainable in the long term.

The Menzies Centre:

• produces and publishes high-quality analyses of current health policy issues;
• delivers public seminars and education programs on a wide variety of health policy topics;
• undertakes comprehensive research projects on health policy issues.

The Menzies Centre for Health Policy was established in 2006 through a competitive grant from the Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Foundation. Since its inception the Menzies Foundation has committed more than $20 million to a number of program initiatives. The Menzies Centre for Health Policy is the most recent of these.

In 2009, the Australian Health Policy Institute and The Diabetes Unit at the University of Sydney merged with the Menzies Centre for Health Policy. The Australian Health Policy Institute was originally conceived by Mr John Wyn Owen when he was Director-General of the NSW Department of Health (1994-97). Mr Wyn Owen observed that Australia lacked a broad-ranging independent institutional capacity dedicated to the analysis of domestic health policy and the promotion of debate on health policy issues. In 1999, the late Professor John Young, then Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Health Sciences, took up this conception and the Australian Health Policy Institute was formed to provide a high-level capability for authoritative, independent, non-partisan analysis of major health policy questions which confront Australian and international health systems. The Institute had four themes: Futures; Equity; Serious and Continuing Illnesses; and Governance.