As part of the Australia Day honours list 2012, public health expert Bill Bowtell was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in recognition of his ‘significant contributions to public health and for his role in developing and implementing of policyand programs supporting HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention’.

Bill Bowtell is recognised as an architect of Australia’s successful and well-regarded partnership response to HIV.

In 1984, he was senior adviser to the Australian health minister Neil Blewett and played a significant role in the introduction of the Medicare health insurance system – a social innovation that saw healthcare delivered to all Australians based on equity of access.

Between 1994 and 1996, he was senior political adviser to the former Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating.

Since 2005, Mr Bowtell has been Director of the HIV/AIDS Project at the Lowy Institute for International Policy and, since 2009, the Executive Director of Pacific Friends of the Global Fund.

He has been a Member of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Blood Borne Diseases and Sexually Transmissible Infections since its inception, and is a former President of the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations. 

Mr Bowtell maintains a close interest in the potential impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic internationally, and particularly within Asia and the Pacific. He has written and broadcast extensively on HIV, and continues to debate key issues in the media and at international and Australian conferences and seminars.