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January 28, 2026 — 7:00pm
The Labor health minister who led the campaign to establish VicHealth 40 years ago has urged the Allan government to reverse its decision to abolish the health promotions body and keep fighting against tobacco-related disease.
David White, a senior figure in the Cain government, which established VicHealth with bipartisan support to wean sport off cigarette advertising, sharply criticised the current government’s plan to scrap the internationally renowned agency, saying that big tobacco would welcome the news.
“It is just ignorance and stupidity,” he said.
“The current minister is clearly the greatest health minister the tobacco industry has ever had.”
White’s rare intervention into state politics came as Mark Birrell, a former Kennett government minister who helped secure bipartisan support for VicHealth, said the Allan government should listen to preventive health experts and reconsider what he described as an irrational decision.
“This was a 100 per cent bipartisan initiative, and it deserves to continue to have bipartisan support,” Birrell said. “There is no rationality for the ALP to withdraw support from one of their proudest achievements.
“My advice is for the government, having listened to experts in public health and science, to withdraw its abolition plan.”
Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas dismissed the criticism.
“The public health landscape has changed significantly since either David White or Mark Birrell were ministers in the last century,” she said.
A government spokesperson said integrating VicHealth into the Health Department would reduce duplication and focus public health resources where they were most needed.
Last month, Allan, Thomas and Treasurer Jaclyn Symes announced their intention to abolish VicHealth as a standalone entity and fold its operations and $45 million budget into the Department of Health.
The change was recommended by former top bureaucrat Helen Silver’s review of the Victorian public service. She concluded that while VicHealth continued to do important work preventing chronic disease, it no longer needed to operate independently of the department.
“It can be absorbed into [Department of Health] work without compromising service equality,” Silver said.
VicHealth is one of 29 public entities or government boards or committees the Allan government has vowed to scrap, merge or absorb into government departments following the Silver review. Silver’s published report does not quantify how much money would be saved by abolishing VicHealth.
VicHealth was established in 1987 as a statutory entity with its own funding source from tobacco excise. Scrapping it as a standalone entity would require changes to the state’s tobacco laws. The state opposition has not indicated whether it supports or opposes the idea.
The proposal to fold the agency into the department has prompted a fierce backlash from preventive health experts. They warn that once VicHealth is absorbed into the sprawling health bureaucracy, its funding and programs would be eroded. It is a funder of Cancer Council Victoria programs and the Quit helpline.
Warnings that getting rid of the agency would be a retrograde step for preventive health in Victoria have come from VicHealth’s chair for the previous five years, Rudd and Gillard government health minister Nicola Roxon; global health advocate and VicHealth patron Sir Gustav Nossal; the National Heart Foundation; Australian Medical Association; Victorian Drug and Alcohol Association; the Victorian Council of Social Services; and the European Public Health Association.
Birrell, the opposition’s health spokesman at the time VicHealth was established, chaired the agency for three years after retiring from politics. He said a case for abolishing VicHealth had not been made by the Silver report or Thomas, who last month said the health promotions body had a strong legacy but it was time to do things differently.
“It is an irrational government decision which will strip money away from highly successful preventative health initiatives, including Quit funding,” Birrell said.
“VicHealth is the principal source of funding for programs like Quit. You don’t save a cent unless they are saying they are going to abolish funding for anti-smoking advertising. I am not sure they know what they are doing.”
Birrell said the strength of VicHealth’s work was the focus it had on marginalised, hard-to-reach population groups such as First Peoples and long-term smokers in migrant communities. One of its more recent initiatives was the “This Girl Can” campaign, which encourages women to have more active lifestyles.
Obesity, like tobacco, is a leading cause of preventable deaths in Victoria.
White said that at the time VicHealth was established, 17 people were dying in Victoria every day from tobacco-related illness. While smoking rates in Victoria have halved since then, VicHealth estimates that tobacco still kills 4000 people a year in Victoria and costs the health system about $5 billion.
“VicHealth has been exported around the world,” White said. “The current government is now saying it is not worth having.
“Whether in the party or the public arena, you have to fight all the time – fight to get an initiative and fight to preserve it. If you don’t fight to preserve VicHealth, you will lose it, as is occurring.”
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