Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Brisbane for her question and acknowledge the significant support she provides to the QIMR and many other medical research bodies within the electorate of Brisbane. It is true that, right around the country, we are blessed with a number of institutes and universities that house the best researchers in the world. Over the course of the last 12 months, we have provided about $750 million as a country to medical research. It is incredibly important that we increase that investment.

In 2011 the then Treasurer, the member for Lilley, sought to take $400 million out of medical research. With young researchers around the country, we fought against that change and we made sure that we kept money in medical research. In the most recent budget, we said that we wanted to set up a $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund. It is incredibly important—not just so that we can employ those young researchers to try to find better ways to deal with diseases and to find world-leading medicines but also so that we can export that expertise. It is of incredible medical benefit to our country, but the economic benefit is significant as well, including in states like South Australia, where the Prime Minister and I were only a couple of weeks ago. We talked to the young researchers at SAHMRI about how by 2022-23, out of this medical research fund, we can provide an additional billion dollars a year for medical research.

It is important, as was pointed out by Simon McKeon. People will know that Simon McKeon was engaged by the Rudd and Gillard governments to do a report on medical research. He came up with the solution. In his report he very tellingly said that the cost of health care at the moment is unsustainable. The person—the independent expert—commissioned by the Labor Party came back to the Labor Party, while they were in government, and said that the way we were spending in health was unsustainable. Simon McKeon spoke at the National Press Club only last week. He said:

… I think quite correctly, that if we don't do anything to our broader health system, it is unsustainable … I think it's going to be a good thing if 20-odd million Australians feel that they're actually directly part of the research effort by that payment … It would be a tragedy if this fund did not happen, simply because the funding mechanism was not agreed to in Parliament.

As the Prime Minister said before, former Prime Minister Hawke had the guts to stand up and say that we needed a co-payment in the PBS—a policy that the Labor Party supported for 50 years. Mr Hawke said at the time that the Medicare system was unsustainable without an equal co-payment being applied to the MBS. This government in this budget not only boosts the money for medical research but also provides support for a sustainable health system—and we stand by it. (Time expired)

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