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WA election 2025: State set for new health minister as Amber-Jade Sanderson may move portfolios

WA is set to get a new Health Minister, with Amber-Jade Sanderson to be given a new portfolio in Roger Cook’s third term Labor Cabinet. Health groups say the incoming minister will have their work cut out for them, as big election promises to fix the State’s ailing public health system are nowhere near enough to build the capacity it desperately needs. The Sunday Times, which first reported the move in December, understands Ms Sanderson is likely to receive economic portfolios, with State Development, Energy and Finance all strong possibilities. It’s understood that in discussions between Ms Sanderson and Mr Cook since last Saturday’s election, the 48-year-old told the Premier she was willing to continue on as Health Minister but was interested in pursuing other opportunities if possible. Mr Cook, who himself after the 2021 State election asked then-Premier Mark McGowan to be taken off health, is understood to have agreed to a portfolio change for Ms Sanderson. WA Labor pledged millions for the health system ahead of the March 8 poll, coupled with assurances it would build a better hospital system — despite already having almost a decade to do so. Recent reports have laid the extent of the problem bare, exposing damning shortfalls in emergency care, planned surgery and other areas across the sector. It comes as health services juggle major capacity constraints with dire attrition rates — almost one in four doctors and almost one in three nurses left the public system in 2023. The Australian Medical Association’s Public Hospital Report Card for 2025 delivered a scathing indictment of the country’s inability to keep pace with a growing, ageing population. “Not only is our current system failing to keep up with overall population growth, but it is also failing to keep up with our changing demographics,” the AMA said, a near identical line on hospital capacity in its 2024 report. Nowhere is this more apparent than in WA, where roughly 80 per cent of the population (2.3 million) lives in the capital city. The Centre for Population’s latest projections predict Perth will be the fastest growing capital city in the next decade as it balloons to 2.9m by 2035. But emergency departments across the metro area are already ill-equipped to service the existing population. An analysis of ED data by The Sunday Times found that over a four-week period last month, there were more than 51,000 attendances to the nine metro EDs, from Joondalup Health Campus in the north to Peel Health Campus in the south. Nearly half of those presentations were triaged category three — patients with “potentially life‑threatening” injuries or illnesses, with treatment meant to start within 30 minutes. Fiona Stanley Hospital was the worst performer across four weeks, regularly having the longest median wait time for category three patients. On one day, the median wait time for patients with potentially life‑threatening conditions was almost five hours. Joondalup Health Campus and Rockingham General Hospital were the next worst for timely treatment of urgent cases, each logging six days with the longest median wait time over the same period. “We continue to be lurching along in a perpetual crisis . . . any doctor working in any of these really busy EDs will call it a crisis,” AMA WA president Michael Page said. “I don’t think you could say there’s any ED across metropolitan Perth that’s consistently working within their capacity. “The pressure doctors and nurses are under is extraordinary.” Dr Page said the new health minister had a tough job ahead of them, trying to fix the troubled WA health system. “We enjoyed a positive relationship with Minister Sanderson, but our message to government has not changed: our hospital system is bursting at the seams and needs major investment into building capacity for the future,” he said. “The population is continuing to increase in age and complexity and if we want to continue to lay claim to a world-class health system for all Western Australians, not just those who can afford and choose to go private, we will need to see a major shift in State Government spending priorities to create more public hospital beds.” But the urgent need to build future capacity is being stymied by the immediate needs of the current system, which Dr Page attributed to poor decision-making from governments past. “It’s really just been a failure of foresight, governments getting caught up in election cycle planning instead of looking at the longer horizon and building healthcare capacity and healthcare infrastructure to meet future needs,” he said. The stretched resources of the health system was under significant scrutiny across the State election campaign, indicating whoever takes on the portfolio will have a massive job ahead of them in the next four years. A cornerstone of that job will be the new $1.8b maternity hospital earmarked for Murdoch that’s set to replace the century-old King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women. The location of the hospital has been much-maligned, with ongoing concerns that a Murdoch-based hospital would mean babies born with heart defects and other life-threatening conditions will be too far away from the Perth Children’s Hospital in Nedlands to get quick treatment. Dr Page said AMA WA wants to see “an early and firm commitment from the new Health Minister to addressing the risks to neonates” associated with having the New Women and Babies Hospital more than 20km away from the State’s only paediatric hospital. “Building a small, specialised obstetric unit at QEII for the delivery of high-risk neonates identified before birth as having major organ abnormalities requiring surgery within the first few days of birth, so that they can be brought quickly to Perth Children’s Hospital for care, would be one way to achieve this and must be seriously considered,” Dr Page said. But hospital capacity is just one of many battles the incoming minister will have to face. Australian Nursing Federation state secretary Romina Raschilla said the government will need to go far beyond managing rising patient loads if it wants to make any difference. “While it is commendable that the State Government acknowledges the complexity of these issues, the need for proactive solutions has never been more urgent,” she said. The union boss said reactive decision-making is no longer cutting it, and stakeholders will have to “work collaboratively towards sustainable solutions”. “The traditional method of predicting the necessary number of hospitals and expansions based on anticipated population growth is no longer sufficient,” she said. “Instead, we must aim to exceed these population predictions to stay ahead of future demands.” Grattan Institute health program director Peter Breadon agreed, saying governments must be more creative as the nature of healthcare changes. “It’s important to have good planning for hospital infrastructure, but that’s only part of the story behind overflowing emergency departments and hospital wards,” he said. “We will continue to see rising demand for hospital care as the population grows, ages, and gets sicker. “But governments can’t simply build their way out of the problem. Without a broader strategy to reduce demand for hospital care, it will be far too costly.” With the possibility of State Development or Finance for Ms Sanderson, she may not escape the health system’s problems entirely. Emergency Services Minister Stephen Dawson had been the front runner to replace Ms Sanderson, but is understood to have not been keen on taking on the demanding job. That leaves Energy Minister Reece Whitby, Housing Minister John Carey and Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis as the main contenders. In other moves, to be formally announced by the Premier on Monday, Kingsley MP Jessica Stojkovski, Mirrabooka MP Meredith Hammat and Upper House MP Matthew Swinbourn are almost certain to be announced as new ministers — replacing retirees John Quigley, Sue Ellery and David Templeman. Kimberley MP Divina D’Anna, who was widely tipped to become the first Indigenous woman to become a WA minister, is set to miss out after Cabinet Minister and Fremantle MP Simone McGurk appeared to have held on to her seat on Friday. Newly minted Landsdale MP Daniel Pastorelli — former chief of staff to Mark McGowan and Roger Cook — is tipped to get the prestigious Cabinet secretary position. As the chess pieces are moved ahead of the announcement of a new Cabinet — and a new Health Minister — Dr Page said AMA WA remains dubious about any forthcoming change. “We’re very sceptical that in five years’ time, we’re going to be where we are now — if not worse,” he said.

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WA election 2025: State set for new health minister as Amber-Jade Sanderson may move portfolios

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WA election 2025: State set for new health minister as Amber-Jade Sanderson may move portfolios