Research Australia has made a submission to the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare in response to its discussion paper on variation in healthcare across Australia. Research Australia’s submission proposes that while variation in health care is an indication of room for improvement it does not indicate what this improvement should be or how it should be implemented. Research Australia’s submission highlights the need to improve our data collection and expand our capacity for analysis and the identification of best practice. We also need to improve the mechanisms for communicating best practice and undertake research into how evidence of variation in healthcare can be used to motivate the adoption of best practice.