Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As the federal member for Higgins I have used my position to advocate strongly for health and medical research in Australia both in the community and in this place. One of the reasons that I founded the Parliamentary Friendship Group of Women in Science, Maths and Engineering was to ensure that there were no artificial barriers to women in research. One of the reasons that I am proud to be an ovarian cancer ambassador is because I know how many lives are devastated by this disease, a disease that has no early detection test and no cure. Health and medical research is critical to delivering better health care for all Australians and it is also critical to our economic future.

Sadly, not everyone shares this view. Not long ago, in fact in February last year, I had occasion to speak in this chamber because of Labor's approach to research—playing games with freezing and unfreezing funding for such things as the NHMRC grants and strangling the sector in red tape, as evidenced by the increased time and money needed to successfully implement a clinical trial in Australia.

The Abbott government is focused on both reducing red tape and also on providing certainty to researchers around the funding framework. That certainty will be delivered through the establishment of a $20 billion medical research Future Fund as announced in the budget this week. This fund will commence on 1 January 2015, assuming that the health savings in the budget receive support through the House and the Senate. Once the fund reaches $20 billion, it is expected to be the largest of its kind in the world. The fund's annual net interest earnings will fund medical research. Distributions from the fund to medical research will be around $1 billion by 2022-23, which will double the government's direct medical research funding.

The capital of the fund will be protected and that capital will be managed by the Future Fund Board of Guardians under the chairmanship of Hon. Peter Costello AC. It will be the earnings from the fund that will provide a secure and ongoing funding stream. Decisions on the allocation of this funding, though, will be determined by the National Health and Medical Research Council, as is appropriate.

So why is this new fund appropriate? Why is it important to all Australians? If we provide the right research framework in this country—one that encourages talented researchers and innovators who are home grown, as well as those from overseas to work in Australia—it will deliver economic benefits for Australia and better health care for all Australians. As I have said before, health and medical research is critical to Australia's future and should be one of our strategic priorities and, as announced in the budget, it certainly is.

With a hub of world-class universities and research institutes based in Melbourne, it is particularly critical for Victoria. We have institutes and also hospitals that conduct research such as the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health at the Melbourne Brain Centre, the Burnet Institute, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, the Cabrini Hospital and Baker IDI, just to name a few.

Importantly, as a country we are very good at medical research. Thanks to Australian research we have life-saving innovations such as penicillin, first used as a medicine by the Australian Noble laureate Howard Florey. We also have the bionic ear, the cervical cancer vaccine and spray-on skin for burns, to name just a few.

Commercialising research can lead to direct wealth creation and jobs growth. Importantly, it can also reduce spiralling healthcare costs and deliver a higher quality of life. I hope that the Greens in particular, and deputy leader Adam Bandt, who has like me been an advocate for certainty in this sector, will do the right thing by both our nation and our research community, who are depending upon them for this fund.

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