Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It looks like Senator Webber is going to contribute to that question. I very much look forward to that. It is very hard to understand why the National Health and Medical Research Council needs to have a person with expertise in the trade union movement sitting on it to contribute to its work. This is not an exercise in bashing unions; it is just a reflection on what role trade unions would have in a body of that kind. I cannot think of a less appropriate setting for trade union participation. I suppose it is possible that medical researchers and so on might be unionised to some extent, but there are plenty of them on the council, as researchers, already. They do not necessarily need representation by another body on the council. All of the state and territory governments are represented, I understand, through their chief medical officers. Presumably, they have a role to play there on behalf of those governments.

I find the suggestion that that particular position should be retained a rather strange one, particularly given that nobody, not one submitter, made that suggestion to the committee. We had over a fortnight for submissions to be lodged with the committee and no trade union took advantage of the opportunity to do that. So, as I said, I find the comments strange.

I also note that the senators concerned oppose the removal of the need for the federal health minister to consult with state and territory health ministers before appointing the chair of AHEC in favour of the requirement of consulting appropriately. This was discussed in the committee, and the Department of Health and Ageing made it clear that the federal minister for health does need to consult with state and territory health ministers through the Australian Health Ministers Advisory Council—and of course there is that representation on the NHMRC of the chief health officers from each state and territory—and that the work of the council should proceed on the basis of ‘a large degree of cooperation and consensus’ so that those sorts of issues or problems are avoided. I think that very neatly deals with that issue.

I accept that it is the right of senators on these inquiries to form views which are based on personal experience rather than on anything that witnesses say to them, but I draw the line at being told that somehow either this bill or the announcements in the last 24 hours exhibit a failure by the Australian government to make a real investment in Australian research. Nothing could be further from the truth. Last night the federal government demonstrated an absolutely sterling commitment to medical research in this country. The benefits of that spending will be felt by generations of Australians to come. It was an extraordinarily generous commitment, and it is a pity that we cannot all acknowledge it for what it is—a major investment in the future health of Australians.