Expenditure on public health activities aims to prevent illness and enhance the present and future wellbeing and quality of life of a nation's population and such investments minimise future health costs.This publication is the fifth in a series that reports expenditure on public health activities by governments in Australia. It provides detailed estimates of recurrent expenditure for financial year 2004-05 along with selected time series data back to 1999-00. The report summarises estimates of funding and recurrent expenditure from key health departments and agencies of the Australian Government and each State and Territory Government by nine public health activity categories.