John Cornwall (South Australian politician)

Doctor John Robert Cornwall (born 1 January 1935) was a Labor member of the South Australian Legislative Council for 14 years from 1975 to 1988. He was a senior member of the front bench for most of his political career.

Pre politics

Cornwall ran successful veterinary practices in Mount Gambier and later in Adelaide from 1961 to 1975.

Politics

Cornwall served for more than six years in the State Cabinet first as Minister for Environment and Lands in 1979, and then as Minister of Health and Community Services in two Bannon Governments from 1982 to the end of 1988.

Cornwall was known as a reforming Minister with a passion for social justice in the health and community welfare portfolios. During the 1980s Cornwall led the nation in many areas of public health and hospital administration. Dr Cornwall fostered a new approach to health care in Australia that was clearly inspired by the ‘Health for All’ agenda of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the 1970s. It championed people increasing control over and improving their health, and viewed health status as inextricably linked to social well-being and economic conditions.

In the early 1980s Cornwall tackled major challenges in the health arena including the Commonwealth-State financial arrangements under a new Medicare agreement, the structure of the State’s health care delivery system, and questions about social justice and equity in public health. Dr Cornwall tightened central government control on hospital administration, so hospital services were able to be shared across the system to better meet patient needs and reduce waiting times. While funding based on population needs, strong central control, and quality assurance are now common place in health care, they were truly radical ideas in 1980s: well ahead of their time. Not surprisingly, the reforms were met with strong resistance from parts of the medical establishment. The success of the reforms is a testament to Dr Cornwall’s political skill and tenacity.

Dr Cornwall championed the development of health and community services for disadvantaged groups, such as women’s health services, Aboriginal health services, child and adolescent mental health services, and child protection services. He developed a community-based system of health care that linked health care services to specific population or geographic areas, with funding granted on the basis of the needs of those areas. As part of these reforms a proportion of health care funds were reallocated from hospitals into areas of social disadvantage, resulting in better access to health services for people in social need.

Another of Dr Cornwall’s significant achievements, and one for which he is justifiably proud, was the clearing of environmental lead pollutants in Port Pirie between 1983 and 1987. Port Pirie is a town in mid north South Australia whose economy is based on a major lead smelter. The project is widely regarded as one of the most significant public health projects among developed countries, and it was achieved despite initial opposition from the Premier, the local Mayor, and the local media. Dr Cornwall ran a strong anti-smoking program and introduced Australia's first comprehensive legislative package to restrict tobacco advertising in cinemas, prohibit tobacco sponsorship of sporting events, and establish an independent trust to provide replacement funding for sponsorship of sport and cultural activities (Foundation South Australia). The legislation was highly significant in paving the way for reforms in other states and the Commonwealth. In 1987 Dr Cornwall introduced legisation decriminalisng possion of small quantities of marijuana. He introduced the legislation as a private members bill having secured support for the policy at the Labor Party convention. He was motivated by a strong belief that decriminalisation would break the nexus between soft and hard drugs, which cause much greater harm to indiviauls and society. When Dr Cornwall resigned from politics in 1989 there where many tributes in local and national media. Barry Hailstone, The Advertiser, 4 August 1988, page 11: ‘It was John Cornwall's dream to be a Minister of Good Health rather than just another good Minister of Health. Early in his portfolio he emerged as a relentlessly hard worker, a well informed and competent administrator …’. ‘He came to the job with a scientifically trained mind and an enlightened attitude to health. A man who listens to good ideas and who treads on toes, he quickly recognised that the greatest advances in SA's health in the next decade would come, not from new drugs or scientific discoveries, but from the way in which health care services were organised and distributed. …’ ‘He ordered dozens of reviews and reappraisals of every facet of the State's health system in a bid to identify its strengths, eliminate its weaknesses and build for the future. … ‘One of the things he will be most proud of - and remembered for - is the merging of the Queen Victoria and the Adelaide Children's hospitals. The first steps have already been taken and the reality of a world class hospital for women and children will become apparent from next year with total integration of the two organisations by 1993.’ ‘Generations of nurses will remember John Cornwall - he achieved a better deal for them than they have in any other State and many other countries - they probably have more power and influence in the administration and policy of health services in SA than anywhere else in the world. … ‘… Budget cuts and a Cornwall policy of rationalisation of medical resources have produced a co-ordinated hospital service – to the point where genuine bids by the Minister to cut Medicare-induced waiting lists have seen patients transferred to other hospitals where beds are available. ‘He would like to have done more about Aboriginal health and under his leadership he identified a need for Aboriginal communities to run their own health services. He fostered plans for training health workers who could attack the massive health problems of the Aborigines, which disturbed him, from within the community. He had plans to attack trachoma - the major cause of blindness in the Aboriginal people through education and prevention.’ ‘He supported community health and made primary care health services accessible to under-recognised areas, in the north and south, and community health is probably better developed in SA than anywhere else in Australia…’ Rex Jory, The Advertiser, 4 August 1988, page 11: ‘… it can be forcefully argued that Dr Cornwall has been the most innovative and effective Health Minister in SA history. He has attempted to put into operation reforms which few would have been courageous enough to suggest to a conservative and entrenched health bureaucracy.’

In the foreword to John Cornwall’s political biography, Just For the Record, Hugh Stretton wrote: John Cornwall was an active, inventive, interfering Minister like few others. He is driven by a passionate desire to leave the world a better place – more equal, more effectively compassionate than he found it … he deserves high acclaim…

A letter to Dr Cornwall from Neil Blewett, the Federal Minister for Health, was reported on page 2 of The Advertiser, 4 August 1988: The Federal Minister for Health, Dr Blewett, has written to Dr Cornwall saying that along with hundreds of thousands of South Australians ‘I deeply regret your resignation. At the national level I have for over five years valued your advice, support and constructive criticism.’ ‘Australians as well as South Australians will be the poorer for your departure. Despite the difficulties which have led to your present decision, you can rest assured that you have been the greatest reforming Minister of Health in South Australia since the Second World War.’ In a letter to the Editor of The Advertiser, 4 August 1988, Gary R Andrews, Former Chairman, SA Health Commission said: 'In my view, as former chairman of the SA Health Commission, the health and welfare services and the people of SA will suffer a very great loss as a result of Dr Cornwall's resignation from his present Ministerial role. …[Dr Cornwall] applied as Minister considerable intellect, boundless energy and absolute dedication to his role. He was without question the most effective health or welfare Minister of any of the many with whom I have had dealings over the years.’

Post politics

Cornwall pursued a third career outside politics from 1989, moving to Sydney to take up senior executive roles for non-government organisations in the human and companion animal health arenas.