Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was heartened that the government reversed its plan to cut funding for medical research. The huge reaction around the nation proved that this truly vital sector is critical if we are to maintain our present health and wellbeing and, more importantly, to make discoveries which continue to change our lives and ease the burden of health costs on the economy for the future. I find it incomprehensible that the Gillard government considered cutting funding to medical research whilst we are undergoing one of the most significant changes to our demographic in Australian history. The rapid ageing of our population is placing a major burden on our society. A large proportion of the financial burden will, of course, be in health care. It is estimated that, whilst the baby boomer generation gained about $3 value for every $1 they contributed in taxes, generation Y and those following will conversely contribute approximately $3 in taxes for every $1 of government spending they receive. This is just one of the reasons we must continue to fund medical research. Another is value for money. It is estimated that medical research returns up to $6 for every $1 invested in its development. That is considered a good return in any business model.

We should recognise the research that is currently being undertaken in Australia and applaud what our researchers have to offer. The Institute for Molecular Bioscience is one such research centre. It is delivering life-changing discoveries and developing treatments you and I can hardly imagine. Last year the IMB, a research centre based at the University of Queensland in my electorate of Ryan, received $6 million in funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council to fund some amazing and extraordinary projects. These included the development of growing therapeutic drugs in seeds and fighting tumours with scorpion venom.

As well as breaking ground with the new, some of the institute's most important work tackles the old. Antibiotics transformed medicine when first discovered in 1928. Their discovery dramatically improved the standard of living, increasing the ease with which disease can be treated to an extent where we can hardly imagine a world without them. However, like all things in our ever-changing world, bacteria have adapted and developed new resistance mechanisms to overcome the effects of many antibiotics in their current form. This means that some patients cannot be treated for life-threatening infections such as golden staph. This is why Professor Matt Cooper has received a grant to develop ways to overcome these new superbugs, targeting two existing antibiotics to create new, more powerful drugs which can treat these infections. Professor Cooper and his team aim to have these drugs ready for human clinical trial within the next five years. (Time expired)

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