Do Australians care enough about healthcare at election time? What are the biggest public health challenges we face? What would it take to put the election spotlight on neurological health? And why is the Australian government continuing to underspend on health and medical research?

In this episode of The Raw Nerve, host Jeremy Henderson is joined by Dr Lesley Russell, Terry Slevin, and Rohan Greenland for a candid conversation about the urgent need to prioritise public health and disease prevention in national policy. The panel explores the lack of long-term healthcare commitments from major parties, the chronic underfunding of medical research, and what a minority government could mean for the future of health policy in Australia.

Terry Slevin
Terry Slevin has been the Chief Executive Officer of the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) since May 2018. He is an Adjunct Professor at both the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University and the College of Health and Medicine at the Australian National University. He is a Fellow of PHAA and was the Association’s first Vice President (Development).

Dr Lesley Russell
Dr Lesley Russell is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Leeder Centre for Health Policy, Economics and Data at the University of Sydney. She is a contributing editor at Croakey and has written the regular Health Wrap column since early 2018.

Rohan Greenland
Rohan Greenland is the CEO of MS Australia, Chair of the Neurological Alliance Australia, and an occasional host of The Raw Nerve podcast.

Links:

• Prioritising neurological disease research: do our leaders have the nerve? – Medical Journal Insight+, 3 March 2025
• MS Australia 2025 Federal Election Statement – 28 March 2025
• The Medical Research Future Fund: Why is so much of the money unused? – Croakey / The Conversation, 3 April 2025
• Public Health Association of Australia
• Croakey Health Media