Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will he inform the House of the benefits of the government's Medical Research Future Fund, and how will the fund help improve the health of all Australians?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. I recognise that he, like a number of others, is a very strong supporter of further investment in medical research. As well as the budget being great for small business, great for Northern Australia and great for farmers, it is great for medical research in Australia. Today we introduced into this parliament the legislation enabling the Medical Research Future Fund, which is a $20 billion endowment fund, the largest of its kind in the world, that will for ever and a day, in perpetuity, help to fund medical research and innovation here in Australia. The Medical Research Future Fund Action Group, headed by a number of eminent business people and, importantly, medical researchers, put out a statement today that said:

The creation of the MRFF … will be transformative for not only health and medical researchers but for the broader Australian community because we know only too well the tremendous impacts this research has on both the health of Australians and on our economy.

There are a number of moments in this place when you know there has been a significant step forward in helping to build a stronger and more prosperous Australia. The establishment under the Abbott government of the Medical Research Future Fund is going to make a very real and tangible difference to the lives of Australians forever—forever—because in perpetuity that $20 billion will help to fund the medical research that will find the breakthroughs for Alzheimer's, heart disease, dementia or even cancer. In the year 2015, in the modern century, how can we still have, for example, brain cancer where 80 per cent of those people diagnosed die and the mortality rate for brain cancer has not changed in the last 30 years? It is the single biggest killer of children, yet there has been no medical breakthrough. We all talk about medical research; now we have a chance as a parliament and as a nation to invest on a scale that previous generations could never dream of. We are doing it as a result of the savings that are being made in the budget and being put into a medical research fund that in perpetuity will have $20 billion and the investment return from that fund will provide a stable, reliable, predictable source of funding for medical researchers on top of what the government already commits—in this budget, $3.4 billion. This is a game changer for Australia and it is absolutely right that it has come about as a result of the work of the coalition government.