Help put Croakey in the room at Labor's National Health Policy Summit

If we learned anything from the 2016 federal election, it was that Australians are concerned about health and value Medicare.

Indeed health and health care became the defining issues of the long and bitter election campaign.

The same concerns are likely to be at play when we go to the polls again, and in the meantime there are many health-related debates and votes headed for Parliament, so the policies being developed by all parties (including the cross-benchers of course) will be crucial.

Federal Labor is holding a National Health Policy Summit in Canberra on Friday 3 March, "to bring together more than 130 of Australia’s leading thinkers on health" to guide its policies on crucial topics through a series of roundtables on:

• protection, prevention and promotion
• primary, secondary and community care
• hospitals
• mental health and suicide prevention
• ensuring universal access for all Australians
• designing the health workforce for the future
• tackling health inequality and other whole-of-government challenges
• innovation across the health system.
  
  

It's a critical opportunity to watch policy-making in action – to hear from many voices and to see what Labor takes on as priorities and what it leaves off the agenda.

We would love to be able to cover the summit for Croakey (as we would any future health policy summits by the Coalition or other parties, if they hold them) but we run on a shoestring  budget. We need to raise funding to cover freelance wages and costs for the day.

Who are we:

Croakey is a social journalism project that enables debate and investigations of health issues and policy. We don't approach health through a narrow clinical or disciplinary lens, but take a holistic view that recognises the health of individuals is connected to the health of communities, societies and the planet.

Marie McInerney is a freelance journalist, who has previously worked for Reuters, the BBC, and other mainstream outlets. She works regularly as a moderator and editor for Croakey and as a journalist with the Croakey Conference News Service. Please see some of the health conferences she's covered here.

Melissa Sweet is one of Australia's foremost health and medical journalists, the author/co-author of a number of health-related books, and founding editor of the Croakey project.

Why should Croakey be in the room?

As the last federal election campaign showed, health rarely gets covered in depth.

Croakey covers policies, not just the politics of health, with a focus on the social determinants of health, health in all policies, and equity, and to amplify the voices of those who aren't always heard in debates on health.

The project will seek to raise $2,200 to cover the event (based on MEAA journalism rates) and our crowdfunding:

• $1,000 for Marie McInerney for preview, prep, travel, attending the Summit, live-tweeting, Periscope video interviews, and feature length wrap of the event, plus commissioning follow-ups.
• $500 for Melissa Sweet for editing, tweeting, preparation and follow-up.
• $500 flights, accommodation (Melbourne to Canberra return)
• $200 (10 per cent of project cost) for Pozible.

The main challenges will be trying to cover as many of the key discussions as possible, given the packed program - with four concurrent roundtables held in each of two sessions. As well as having Marie attend two roundtables, we will try to present as many insights as possible via Periscope interviews with participants from other sessions and through harvesting tweets on Twitter, and where possible through seeking followup reports on issues that emerge.