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Greg Hunt is minister for damage control in Malcolm Turnbull's minimalist reshuffle

Michael Gordon

This is the damage-control reshuffle Malcolm Turnbull had to have after throwing Sussan Ley overboard: pragmatic, minimalist and utterly risk-averse.

And Greg Hunt, the big winner, is the damage-control minister, with a track record in being able to neutralise issues that can become massive headaches.

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New Health Minister

Malcolm Turnbull reveals who will replace Sussan Ley after her resignation over the expenses saga. Courtesy ABC News 24.

That's what he did as Tony Abbott's minister for the environment. That's what Turnbull expects of him in health, the portfolio of landmines and the area that, more than any other, cost the Coalition in the July election.

Turnbull's achievement has been to fill a forced vacancy in what he correctly describes as a "critically important frontline portfolio", yet still reduce the size of his ministry by one.

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This is because Arthur Sinodinos has completed his job of restoring traditional cabinet government as cabinet secretary. That role can now be transferred to an unelected official in the PM's office and Sinodinos is well-qualified to pick up Hunt's industry and innovation portfolio.

His challenge, as the fourth Coalition industry minister in less than four years, will be to give some form and shape to the innovation area that Turnbull promised would define his prime ministership - and deliver a dividend in jobs and growth.

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The pity is that the circumstances overshadow a move that was not forced on Turnbull and is truly historic.

Ken Wyatt, the first Indigenous person to be elected to the lower house now becomes the first Aborigine to be appointed to a ministry.

Wyatt assumes responsibility for the aged care and Indigenous health portfolios after an apprenticeship as assistant minister. The understated yet very effective Wyatt has never been constrained by his identity, but he is uniquely qualified to make an impact in one of the key closing-the-gap areas.

If he does well, and there is every reason to expect he will, he would be an excellent candidate to become Indigenous Affairs Minister should Nigel Scullion step down in a mid-term reshuffle.

One worry is whether Wyatt's voice will be heard on a host of critical issues in the aged-care portfolio, which was part of Ley's health portfolio and is now unrepresented at cabinet level.

A broader concern is that the reshuffle reduces the number of women in the Turnbull cabinet to just five out of 22. The Prime Minister can rationalise that this is still better than his Coalition predecessors, but the explanation sits awkwardly with his boast on "an extraordinary range of talent on the backbench".

For Hunt, the challenges are clear. The most immediate is to blunt Labor's Mediscare campaign, and respond to demands that he lift the freeze on patient Medicare rebates and abandon cuts, including those to diagnostic and medical imaging.

More broadly, he has to deliver better outcomes more efficiently so that, as the Business Council's Jennifer Westacott expressed it, Australia can afford high-quality healthcare without higher taxes or increased debt.

As Turnbull pointed out, Hunt does possess strong policy, analytical and communication skills. He also has empathy, the quality most lacking in this government, but there is no more complex nor contested area than health policy – and none with a more diverse and powerful range of stakeholders.

Announcing the changes, Turnbull was pressed twice on whether Hunt would be able to base himself at Noosa or Hayman Island at taxpayers' expense, as he had in the past, completely within the rules.

The Prime Minister responded that the reforms he announced when Ley resigned – including monthly reporting of MPs' expenses and an independent body to supervise them – were the most extensive in a generation and that a big cultural change was under way. In other words, no.

Turnbull's expectation is that the reforms and the appointments draw a line under a very messy beginning for 2017. We'll know soon enough if his confidence is well-founded.

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