Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Medical Research Future Fund Bill 2015 and the Medical Research Future Fund (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2015 establish the Medical Research Future Fund, which involves the crediting and debiting of funds and the governance and administration of the fund itself. The Greens are strong supporters of health and medical research and we support the intention of the Medical Research Future Fund—that is, strategies that will prioritise and foster innovation and translational research. Health and medical research represents some of the very best of what Australia can offer and some of the very best of the economic opportunities for the generation ahead. It is with some pleasure that I can say that in my hometown of Melbourne we have some of the greatest medical research minds in the country. We have people like Professor Brendan Crabb from the Burnet Institute and Professor Doug Hilton from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, all of whom have been not only incredibly important contributors to the medical research effort in the Australian nation but also very strong advocates and supporters for the establishment of a medical research future fund.

It is the Greens' view that a 21st century economy needs to be built on our minds, not simply on minds. We have the clinical research capacity that exists in very few countries across the world that allows us to be able to conduct the sort of groundbreaking research that is not just simply elemental research but carries right through the spectrum to translational research and commercialisation. The Greens spoke in the election of a science package that would commit three per cent of GDP to research by the year 2020. It is a package that consists of a combined $750 million boost to the Australian Research Council and to national cooperative research centres, funding for indirect costs associated with health and medical research—and that is a huge drag on medical research in that the research is funded but the indirect administrative costs are not—moving towards default five-year grants in ARC and NHMRC through those grant processes and ensuring that we recognise people with a proven track record, $342 million to reverse the cuts that the government implemented to the Sustainable Research Excellence program and another several hundred million dollars in the area of a national research infrastructure facilities council. I could go on. There would be opportunities for international collaboration, ongoing future fellowships schemes, open access publishing of government funded research and more targeted support for commercialisation. That leads on to one of the great advantages of something like the Medical Research Future Fund, which has a very strong focus not just on primary elemental research driven research but on identified strategic areas where we can move to bridge the huge gap that exists between those primary areas of research and translation and commercialisation.

I do understand that people have expressed some concerns around the proposed legislation that is before us. Certainly the Greens raised very serious questions about what the primary driver of the genesis of this legislation was. It was implemented at a time where we had a government that was very keen to introduce a GP co-payment and it is very hard to escape the conclusion that this was drafted after that decision in order to sweeten what was a very poor area of public policy. However, the Greens, like many people within the medical research community, were keen to ensure that one of the very few good ideas that has come from this government was not jettisoned simply because it was associated with one area of poor policy. We understand that some other issues have been addressed around the bill—issues of governance, how we define translational research and the role of the NHMRC in the process—and I will talk to those in a moment.

It has to be said, though, that this fund is a fund that sits amongst some other areas of government policy where this government has been prepared to go in precisely the opposite direction to the direction that we appear to be going in here when it comes to medical research. Look at climate change, for example, and the backward steps that we are taking in investing in the sort of research that needs to be done in order to ensure that we are able to mitigate and adapt to catastrophic global warming. Look at the lack of investment in our university sector, cuts to the CSIRO and to R&D budgets and so on and you will see a government that is underinvesting in the sort of transformation that is necessary in order to drive a modern 21st century economy.

Going to the details of the fund, which is one small, shining light in a long tunnel of darkness, we have a fund where we will see $400 million available over the four years until June 2019, and of course we want to ensure that good governance and review processes accompany this package. In fact, our amendments have sought to ensure that what we do get is an improved governance process as well as a return on some of the serious commercial gains that might be made as a result of public investment. As I said, I think it is important to ensure that, given there is a debate about the role of the NHMRC in this process, it is understood that the Medical Research Future Fund does have a different focus to the NHMRC. As somebody who has been a long-time supporter of the NHMRC, an organisation that has a very long history of safeguarding and supporting health and medical research and giving advice to the community and government on drafting guidelines on so many important areas in health, I think it is important that we establish governance processes that are robust. To that end, it must be said that there are concerns around the degree to which the governance processes will leave this fund open to political interference, and I think we need to address that issue head on.

The first thing to say is that the NHMRC itself is not immune to government interference, despite its very impressive track record and despite its being an organisation that has shown itself to be an exemplar in many areas of scientific research. The NHMRC is now committed to investing several hundreds of thousands of dollars into research on the impact of wind turbines on people's health. The point here is that it is impossible to protect any organisation from political interference, and we know that the history of that decision was a decision that was very directly influenced by political considerations. However, we are assured that one of the changes to the legislation is that the bill requires the advisory board—and let's be clear that there is an independent advisory board—will be established to administer these funds. That board will be made up of medical and scientific experts, all of whom are very protective of their professional reputations and would take very dimly to the suggestion that their decisions will be influenced based on political considerations, but the legislation does require the advisory board to take into account the NHMRC's national strategy for medical research and public health research—that is, it will be directed by those priorities that have already been identified by the NHMRC.

We now know that Professor Kelso, the CEO of the NHMRC, will be given the opportunity to contribute to the development of the strategy that will guide the decisions of the advisory board—that is, the medical research and innovation strategy. The NHMRC will play a key role in drafting that strategy through Professor Kelso, who will be part of that advisory board. In her role as the CEO of the NHMRC she will ensure that the Medical Research Future Fund and the NHMRC strategies are aligned and complimentary. Professor Kelso has also reassured us that she will be able to draw on the NHMRC's wealth of experience and advice from its council and principle committee, and it will be critical to have her involvement on the advisory board.

The next thing that needs to be said is that Professor Kelso has also said that, if any Medical Research Future Fund funds are directed to the NHMRC for disbursement, the NHMRC will adapt those processes and draw on whatever expertise is necessary to make particular recommendations to government. I would urge the minister to ensure that that suggestion is taken up, with an undertaking to exercise that as a principle across the board. Having the NHMRC's CEO on the decision making panel is critical, and we are satisfied that that will make a significant different to the decisions and the complementarity between the NHMRC and the Medical Research Future Fund.

We think there is a role, though, for some government discretion. We take Senator McLucas' points about the concerns, but we have been reassured that those concerns have been addressed through the advisory panel and the role of NHMRC on that advisory board. There are times when governments do need to determine the research priorities very quickly. In fact, we heard from the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes, which described the example of a global pandemic where there is an imperative to direct our research priorities, for example, towards the development of a vaccination or other time critical research priorities. There it is necessary that there should be some flexibility for governments to be able to intervene in extraordinary circumstances, and there is a consensus that any involvement from government should be on the basis of an extraordinary circumstance like that rather than being the default position. Again I reiterate that the reputations of very distinguished medical researchers and scientists as well as the CEO of the NHMRC are at stake should political imperatives influence the decisions of the Medical Research Future Fund.

I think that it is also important to note that the investment that is contained within the Medical Research Future Fund will be determined by a similar investment mandate to that determined by the Future Fund. It will differ around return and so on, but one of the things that the Greens have been very keen to ensure is that the Future Fund's policy—something that was achieved through the advocacy and work of the Greens—of not investing in tobacco products would be something that would apply to the Medical Research Future Fund. In fact, we have been assured that, while the Medical Research Future Fund can invest in any financial instrument, it would also act consistently with the Future Fund's policy around excluding investments in tobacco companies and cluster munitions. The Medical Research Future Fund will maintain a list of entities that are excluded under the board's ownership rights and the ESG risk management policy that applies within the Future Fund—that is, an exclusion on tobacco companies and cluster munition companies. We are pleased that that change has been made.

Let me conclude by saying that we absolutely understand the concerns that have been expressed by the Labor Party in terms of the risk of political interference. We have worked to ensure through our amendments that that risk is minimised. We have also worked to ensure through our amendments that there may be some potential for Australians to get a return on any successful project—by the word 'successful' I mean a commercially successful project. There should be some capacity for the Australian community to get a return on that investment. We have also—through amendments suggested to the government that we will discuss again later in the committee stage—sought to ensure that NHMRC funding is protected and that this Medical Research Future Fund is not used as a vehicle through which to shift investment dollars away from entities like the NHMRC to direct them towards another fund.

In summary, we support the concept of a medical research future fund. We think that it is important to prioritise investment in translational funding and the commercialisation of projects. It is one of the very few good ideas that this government has come up with over its brief and chaotic period in government. It stands in direct contrast to the agenda it has to cut investment in funding science, research and innovation. But, where there are good ideas, the Greens are prepared to support them and we look forward to continuing this debate during the committee stage of the bill.