S.TRUEMAN PhD THESIS 2016

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between them, including the National Rural Health Alliance, Australian Commission Safety and Quality and the Nursing and Midwifery Stakeholder Reference Group (Commonwealth Department of Health). Another dedicated rural and remote nurse organisation was formed in 1992, called the Association for Australian Rural Nurses (AARN). Its focus was not lobbying policymakers, but to be a more practice-based representational body for the rural and remote nurses themselves. This organisation was subsumed into the Australian College of Nursing as a Special Interest Group and is no longer an independently functioning entity. There are three organisations that represent broadly the nursing profession. While not specifically targeted at remote nurses, they nevertheless are relevant. The first is the ACN, which is the second largest representational body for nurses in Australia with 7,643 members. One stated ‘Aim’ is that the Australian College of Nursing is committed to ensuring that the expertise and experiences of nurses are represented in policy development throughout the Australian health system. The college has submitted and represented nurses (and midwives) before various Government Departments (e.g., Department of Health, Senate Inquiry hearings, Productivity Commissions hearings and ANMAC), for a total of 69 occasions from December 2013 until March 2015. On some occasions they have dealt with matters which included remote nurses as part of the nursing profession, such as Health Workforce Australia, Nursing Workforce Retention and Productivity consultation, Federal Budget Submission 2014–2015 (which made a recommendation for more funding for rural and remote nursing incentives) but, noteworthy for this study, none specifically related to remote nurses or remote mental healthcare issues (ACN website). Further, the college has