Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

) ( ): Unlike the outstanding member for Higgins, I don't have a medical background. My position is from the heart, as much as it is about the substance. The reality is that we know Australia is facing a challenge around an ageing population. One of the great challenges coming with an ageing population is the fullness in which people can live their lives, the medicine that can support them in terms of the assistance and the care they need, and increasingly the challenge that people face in managing multiple conditions at the same time.

Most people will probably look at some of that story and say, 'That is a point of concern.' But, frankly, it's a sign of just how much progress our society has made. It wasn't long ago that so many people died from conditions that were otherwise curable. But through the rollout of science and technology, and research and innovation, we've seen many conditions which were once death sentences now being mere blips in people's lives.

Of course, what we know is that we're only getting stronger. The potential continues for us to be able to cure many conditions or manage chronic conditions so that people can live a full and happy life regardless of who you are and regardless of your circumstances. But we can only support that type of medication, and that type of assistance and support to those who need it, because we are a country that is strong and prosperous. We can fund research innovation and access to medications and medicine that people in many other countries on earth simply will never have the access to because of the cost.

That's driven by an innovative model, but it's also driven by our economic base. That's why simple measures that are economic are human. Getting the budget back in the black, making sure that we have a surplus and making sure we live within our means aren't about dollars and cents. It's about making sure that we can fund the medicines that people need.

What we know is that we're also on the cusp of great new innovations in precision medicine—with research, development and commercialisation—where we can practise medicine and deliver health care with the potential to revolutionise medication the way that penicillin did many years prior. That's the exciting moment that we sit on right now.

The Australian Council of Learned Academies' report The future of precision medicine in Australia highlights how precision medicine will create new care paradigms and shift our health system from one of crisis management to the reality of a genuine health management. In time precision medicine will support new possibilities of disease prevention, saving costs and maximising the benefits to our health system.

But why waste time talking about our health system, when the real beneficiaries and the real strength and the real success of precision medicine are not what it does to a system; it's what it does to Australians and the potential for them to be able to live out the fullness of their lives. It's not just that it has enormous potential for those people who need help but also potential in terms of growth in industries and sectors where Australia can lead the world.

In August 2019, we had the minister announce a total of $3.7 million for fellowships that will build bioinformatics capacity and capability, including just over $1.5 million to Dr Adam Ewing from the University of Queensland to explore the relationship between changes in DNA and changes in health. That investment sits across the huge investment that this government has made across the board in precision medicine and through bodies like the Medicine Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Research into precision medicine does provide a human benefit. But of course it creates an economic opportunity of highly skilled jobs and support for those people in our healthcare sector. Those people who are going through university today and studying health care, medicine and pharmaceuticals can see the pathway to where they can do their research, their science, based on their qualifications, and the job opportunities at the end of it. It creates an opportunity for us as a country to be a world leader so that we can export our services, our health and medical services, and our research base to the world.

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