How often will this happen before Australia's decision-makers stop the debasement of policy development?
The latest example is Australia's new five-year National Immunisation Strategy - by any measure, it is a critically important document.
Yet, having been developed in virtual secrecy based on input from a consultant and a select group of unidentified stakeholders, everyone else has now been given two weeks to provide feedback via an online survey.
It is a statement of the obvious to suggest that an unannounced two-week curated online consultation is not driven by a genuine interest in feedback but by an official need to establish a veneer of defensibility for a flawed process.
It is an incredibly cynical exercise to pass off informing as consulting.
The biopharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostic sectors are accustomed to these processes. In this case, the debasement of a policy process will directly affect patients, including those living with severely compromised immune systems who have not been consulted or even officially informed of this two-week online process.
It is bad enough that people living with severe health conditions have been given two weeks to respond to this strategy. It is made worse by the fact they have to know it is there to contribute. This has to stop.
