Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased that the Greens are interested in listening to me—that is very good!

As we made clear in this supplementary report to the Senate inquiry, a Labor government would seek to amend the NHMRC Act to ensure that, whilst the MRRF special account were to remain independent, the role of any MRRF advisory committee would be reflected in the NHMRC council structure, with the same sort of rigor applied to funding assessment as the NHMRC does through its existing grant schemes.

Whilst it is not possible to make such significant amendments through this bill, these amendments do go some way to achieving this objective by reflecting the NHMRC committee structure as it is defined in the NHMRC Act in the proposed MRRF Act. Specifically, Labor's amendments include the provision that the advisory board is taken to be a principal committee within the meaning of the National Health and Medical Research Council Act 1992. I commend these amendments to the chamber.