While Australia's health system has reached universal health coverage (UHC), recent scholarship points to its strengths and identifies ways it could be more effective and equitable, especially for tackling non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Building on the Australian experience, we add to these perspectives and present pertinent lessons for the quest towards UHC, and for policy-makers globally with regard to NCDs. Potential lessons include: the need for ( i ) vigilance - UHC requires ongoing monitoring and evaluation of not only financial risk protection but non-financial barriers and impacts such as forgone care; ( ii ) investment and action now on structural determinants of NCDs and related inequalities to avoid potentially higher (fiscal, social and health) costs in the longer term; and ( iii ) the opportunity for policy-makers globally and nationally to revisit their ambitions for UHC to include population health policies/ programs beyond essential health services that are required for healthier, more equitable and thriving societies., (© 2022 The Author(s); Published by Kerman University of Medical Sciences This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.)