Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens indicate that we will be supporting these government amendments. The Greens note that the committee process considered issues around governance of disbursements, the scope of the research that can be funded and reporting and priority setting, all of which were important issues, and we are satisfied that the government has taken into account the feedback from the community on those significant areas.

In addition, the Australian Greens raised two further issues. One was concern that the fund would be used as an excuse to reduce funding to the National Health and Medical Research Council, which of course would have been totally undesirable, and we see that this has been addressed in government amendments, so we are satisfied about that. The second concern that we did raise was that it would be desirable to look at some form of return to taxpayers of the significant public investment that is going to be made in this fund that will almost inevitably generate some private benefit to private organisations, and how some of that benefit could be recouped back into the fund to benefit the public again.

We are satisfied that that second issue has been initially addressed by the minister's comments but also that it will and should be reviewed over time, and certainly the Australian Greens will be looking to that and looking at that review that occurs. Given those comments I do indicate that the Australian Greens will be supporting these government amendments.

Question agreed to.