Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to continue my remarks from earlier today about the Medical Research Future Fund Bill 2015 and government amendments that we have already circulated. These amendments clarify and enhance the decision-making and accountability mechanisms to be used in the disbursement of funds from the MRFF. They reflect the policy approach already announced, but for public assurance the government is very willing to insert arrangements into the legislation that were originally intended to be implemented administratively. By shifting this detail into the legislation, the government can disabuse concerns raised by the opposition that disbursements from the fund may lack sufficient governance or expert leadership. The amendments ensure robust decision making and strong accountability mechanisms.

In summary, the amendments to increase transparency in the decision-making process include the requirements for an expert Australian medical research advisory board, setting out the advisory board's role, governance and reporting arrangements; an Australian medical research and innovation strategy; Australian medical research and innovation priorities; and decision-making mechanisms for the disbursement of funds from the MRFF to be reliant upon the strategy and the priorities.

As Australia's pre-eminent health and medical research body, the NHMRC has a vital contribution to make to the proposed arrangements and will continue to do so, contrary to the claims of the opposition. The independent Australian medical research advisory board that I will appoint will have eight members, including the CEO of NHMRC. The board will collectively possess expertise in medical research, policy relating to health systems, management of health services, medical innovation, financing and investment, and commercialisation. The role of the advisory board will be to set the Australian medical research and innovation strategy every five years and to determine the priorities arising from this strategy every two years. The Australian medical research and innovation strategy will ensure that a coherent and consistent approach is adopted in the funding of medical research and medical innovation from the MRFF over a five-year period.

The strategy determined by the advisory board must take into account the national strategy prepared by the NHMRC, and it should also refer to the government's science and research priorities. The priorities will inform the proposals for disbursement that I will take to cabinet each year for decision through the budget process. The government's decisions on MRFF disbursements will be accountable decisions—accountable to parliament in biennial reports. The MRFF represents a major injection of new funds into the medical research sector, adding to the research funding allocated by the NHMRC through the Medical Research Endowment Account. The MRFF and MREA will operate alongside each other and in clear sight of each other. My biennial reports to the parliament will disclose how the spending profile for the MRFF adds to other categories of Commonwealth funding on medical research and innovation, to demonstrate that the new fund builds upon existing funding. That is another important safeguard in the amendments that will give public confidence around assurances that the government has already given.

The proposed amendments also clarify the finance minister's role. The finance minister is not the decision maker of funds from the MRFF, contrary to what the opposition had thought during the second reading debate. Debits from the MRFF special account will only be made by the finance minister after being required to do so by the health minister. The role of the finance minister merely credits amounts between accounts as a bursar of funds, acting on instruction of the health minister. What we are putting in legislation today has been the government's intention all along, and public statements by my colleagues and I have indicated as much. However, I trust that bringing this additional clarity into the legislation will allay the concerns that have been raised about this vital initiative.

I commend the bill and the amendments to the House.

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for explaining those amendments that have now been circulated and moved in her name. But the question of detail about how these funds will be disbursed and the degree of public confidence and sector confidence that there will be around the disbursement of these funds is not mere detail—it is utterly central to the reputation of the health and medical research sector in Australia. We will not oppose these amendments, although we see them as second-class. We think the amendments that we moved and failed to pass in the House, which would see these funds go through the Medical Research Endowment Account and therefore be distributed according to normal NHMRC processes, are by and away the better alternative, but we recognise that we did not have the numbers in the House to get those through. Madam Speaker, I know that you are very familiar with the medical research sector in Sydney; can I say that it is one of the great sectors in Australia. Its reputation goes back to 1936, when Billy Hughes, who was then the Minister for Health—a man not normally praised on this side of the House—created the National Health and Medical Research Council, with the ambition for Australia to 'punch above its weight', using Billy Hughes's words. Since that time, medical and health researchers from Australia have well and truly punched above their weight. In Labor's view, one of the reasons for that is that people in Australia and people around the world have been able to have confidence about the peer review and competitive nature of the NHMRC funding process; applications for funding to conduct medical research funded through the NHMRC, funded by the Commonwealth taxpayer, is competitive and peer reviewed and has proper oversight.

These amendments certainly improve this bill from the original form, but we still take the view that the better way for this to proceed would be for the funds that are able to be collected by the government—however they do that—be put through the MREA, the medical research endowment account, subject to those age-old processes that have helped underpin the extraordinary reputation that the Australian health and medical research sector has.

We will not oppose the amendments in this House but, as the minister knows, a Senate inquiry has just commenced. I am advised that we will have some public hearings over the course of July where these issues will be able to be fleshed out a little bit more, and they will then be subject to further debate in the Senate.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I endorse the comments made by the member for Port Adelaide. We are currently looking at a range of areas where the current government appears to be taking out the process where we have independent peer review and assessment.

I would just like to ask the minister a question: where do you see the work that is being done on data linkage between the Commonwealth and the state going with this medical research fund? It is absolutely critical that we have in place a mechanism that enables the PBS and the Medicare data to be linked, with anonymous identifiers, to the hospital records. Without the ability to bring the Commonwealth and state datasets together, we are actually going to be losing the raw material from of much of this medical research.

I want to take this opportunity to ask the minister: has she been dealing with this issue? There was a brief period where we did have linkage and we had extraordinary results emerging. Since then, we had a pull-back by the Commonwealth. I understand the Commonwealth has now made some slight forays, and they have said that for short-term projects they would allow this data linkage. But, if we are serious about medical research, we do need to get both sets of data together in order to have insight into illness and wellbeing in Australia. Minister, can you shed some light on this?

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The subject matter that the member for Perth has raised is not the subject matter of this bill at all. This is a piece of finance legislation that sets up the Medical Research Future Fund. It is important that we actually get this fund set up. I do not appreciate the delays that Labor has initiated along the way, or Labor's comments about a Senate inquiry and further huff and puff about what we are doing—when we all know very clearly what we are doing.

The member for Perth talks about data and data linkages, and that is actually a good subject for discussion and I am happy to have an offline conversation with her. I make a couple of points, however, in response to her comments. There is enormous analytical capability around the data that is collected through the MBS and PBS. We certainly acknowledge that. I know that the secretary of my department is very focused on the ability of the Department of Health to correctly and appropriately bring to bear the intelligence around this analysis. So I look forward to a ramping up of that, as we go forward.

The other point I would make is that, in correcting and replacing Labor's failed eHealth Record with the coalition's myHealth Record, a system that will be opt-out not opt-in, it will initiate the collection of an enormous amount of data from each and every Australian through their personal electronic health record. I expect that well over 95 per cent of Australians, if not more, will have this health record. You can of course choose to opt out if you wish to. That will provide an enormous amount of data that can be mined appropriately, with due privacy considerations, at a time that makes sense for medical research.

As always, I thank members of this parliament who take an interest in medical research. I would urge the member for Perth to urge her own side to pass this bill through the Senate expeditiously.

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.