Subjects: National Health and Medical Research Funding.
E&OE..................
Thank you Mark very much, Malcolm, Michael Wooldridge, Tony Bastion, Doctor Hallwitz, ladies and gentlemen.
It is the third occasion that I';ve been to the Sydney Institute and on the two previous occasions I came to indicate a level of Federal Government support for the work of the institute. Medical institutes are one of the great success stories of the Australian experience over the last 100 years. Around the world it';s always been accepted that Australia has, to use the vernacular, punch above her weight in the area of health and medical research. For our population we do extremely well. For our population we produce a remarkably high number of people who go on to win world acclaim and world respect for the work they do in research. And I and my colleagues saw it as one of the responsibilities of the Government to ensure that that reputation was not lost over a period of time.
And many of you will be aware that we commissioned the inquiry chaired by Peter Wills which looked into the level of funding of health and medical research in Australia and rising out of that recommendations was the principal proposal of Peter Wills, namely that we should double the level of health and medical research funding in Australia over a period of years. And that was the highlight of the 1999 budget brought down by the Treasurer and I know it was a proposal which not only had the enthusiastic support of the Health Minister, it was also a proposal which I know he was particularly proud as I was to be associated.
And the purpose of my being here today is to announce that the Coalition Government will allocate from the National Health and Medical Research Council to Australia';s world leading health and medical research in the year 2002, a total of $367 million out of the funds currently available and that funding allocation which is for next year represents the most substantial and comprehensive investment in Australia';s health and medical research ever undertaken. An investment of this magnitude was made possible by our decision in the 1999 budget to allocate $616 million and thus double NHMRC funding over a period of six years.
Under the revamped guidelines and funding system, the allocation includes project, program and fellowship grants. Project grants provide Australia';s outstanding health and medical researches with unprecedented funds to pursue their research goals. The new program grants provide more funds for longer term grants and bigger teams of researches to target health and medical research needs. Australians are entitled to expect health and medical research to provide new prevention measures, new treatments and cures and growth of industries based on the knowledge gained from research. We are now very well placed to deliver these vital outcomes.
I want to thank Professor Alan Pettigrew, the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of the NHMRC, and Professor Warwick Anderson, the chairman of the Research Committee, for their work in establishing the new stream line grants program. The NHMRC is continuing to lead the way in funding internationally recognised world class health and medical research for the benefit of all Australians. Increasingly this research is forming the basis of an innovative biotechnology industry in Australia and would ensure Australia retains its place at the cutting edge of international health and medical research. Nationally the 2002 allocation is funding 408 project grants, that';s taking $143 million; 16 new program grants, that';s taking $115 million; 46 fellowship grants which is taking $25.5 million; and that totals $283.5 million. And the remaining $83 million includes funding for training awards, career development awards and block funded institutes. Full details of the 2002 funding allocation will I understand be provided by the NHMRC later on today so that all of the detail can be available for people in the medical and research community.
Meanwhile, I am delighted to announce that one of the 16 Australia wide new program grants approved by the Government goes to the Centenary Institute. We have approved an $8.575 million for a program dealing with the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying adaptive immunity in health and disease and I know that that particular grant will be put to very very good use indeed by the Centenary Institute.
The program tackles fundamental issues in contemporary immunology that should enhance our knowledge substantially of immune responses underlying auto-immune diseases and allergies, a major health problem in Australia. Knowledge gained from the program will have direct relevance to other clinically important areas including vaccination and organ transplantation. Considerable intellectual property is likely to emerge during the course of the program. I want to congratulate the Institute and Professor Tony Bastion on the Institute';s behalf in winning this grant for such incredibly important work.
Ladies and Gentlemen the Centenary Institute has over the past few years grown in an impressive way. It has begun to make its mark as a very highly respected research institute not only here in Sydney and in Australia, but around the world. I have frequently in my time, especially over the last three years, spoken of the need in tackling contemporary, social, health and other issues and the need to have a partnership, or I call it a coalition. I know in present days ‘coalition'; has a rather political connotation but once you pass from the phase of an election campaign if you can talk about a small ‘c'; coalition then you really are talking about the attitude of mine, the behaviour whereby different sections of the community with different backgrounds but a common interest in achieving certain goals come together. And medical institutes are a wonderful example of the social coalition at its very best.
You have the dedicated medical practitioners and the medical professionals, you have very committed generous philanthropic men and women from the business community whose expertise is elsewhere but whose heart is very much in helping blaze new trails of research and find new areas of discovery and deliver new hope of long and healthy lives to Australians. Then you have governments that from time to time and quite properly are called upon to make the community';s money available and to see it';s well spent. And you also have an ambience in these sorts of institutes of commitment and dedication and the inevitable zeal and skill of young researchers. This county has an enormous number of talented young researchers. The work of this institute and also the aim of the Backing Australia';s Ability science, technology and research policy that I released at the beginning of January. It is designed amongst many things to retain within Australia to the extent that is sensible, because it has always been part of educating yourself in particular professions to spend a bit of time overseas and I don';t think we should be so insular as to take fright at the idea that at various stages in a person';s professional life they might go abroad to better themselves. I think we should be careful that when we talk about the brain drain to remember that we have always had many of our young go over and get more experience and equally we have had the young of other countries come to Australia and give them experience. It is a two way process. The important thing is to make certain that the facilities and the opportunities and the lifestyle here are sufficient that a proper percentage of those who do go abroad ultimately come back. And many of the programs that we have outlined in Backing Australia';s Ability such as the quite outstanding and generous Federation Fellowships, the first batch of which I announced several weeks ago in Canberra, are designed to do exactly that and there is already evidence that those particular programs are working.
So ladies and gentlemen this is a tremendous day for health and medical research in this country. We did, as I say, make a very strong statement and a very big financial commitment when we said we would double the research over a period of years. This is a very large element of that doubled research. I am very happy to say that some of it through the proper processes of assessment is coming to this institute where I know it will be used very well. Because this may possibly be, in the light of his announced intentions, may possibly be the last medical gathering that Michael Wooldridge and I are at together in our current positions or his current position. Can I simply say that Michael has been my health minister for the last five and a half years. I think he has done and outstanding job. I want to thank him. What I have liked very much about Michael is that he has been a very engaged health minister. He hasn';t always taken the advice either of his department or of the medical profession. He sometimes, like all of us, got it wrong but on most occasions I believe he got it right.
People sometimes forget that being a good health minister is not just about winning the debates of medical politics and providing such things as tax rebates for private health insurance and doubling medical research funding but it is also very much about something that is so important to the future and that is lifting our immunisation rates for children. I couldn';t believe that a few years ago when I learnt that our immunisation rates were 53% which was about the level of a third world country. And the program that we introduced in order to bring that up to a much higher standard the very strong campaign he has waged in relation to the health effects of smoking, irksome to some people. I have to say on occasions I …..you think smokers are the most persecuted group of people in the Australian community. But the medical evidence is overwhelming and as somebody who gave the habit away twenty-four years ago I am not going to preach to anybody about it but simply say we now have a smoking level which is amongst the lowest of western world countries and that has to have long term benefits for the health of our country and long term benefits for the health budget.
Health is always a controversial area of policy. Can I say Michael you have made a wonderful contribution. Our health system is not perfect, it can always be improved but I have frequently said and I mean it if you are of poor means it';s better to be ill in a country like Australia than a country like the United States or any European country or most of the countries with which we normally compare ourselves because with all of its imperfections it does provide a very high quality of service and that is in no small measure due to the tremendous professional dedication of doctors and nurses and everybody else connected with the profession. It';s a profession that I admire a great deal and I am always very pleased to be associated with commitments and announcements that strengthen the partnership between the Federal Government and the medical profession of Australia.
I wish the Centenary Institute well. I again record my thanks to the NHMRC for the work that it has done. And to all of you who are here today that are associated either in research or other capacity with the Centenary Institute, I hope this endowment gives you the wherewithal, the tools, the opportunity to carry on your wonderful work. You are doing tremendous work for the future of this country. You are an enormous credit because we are so good at this and providing we tap the enthusiasm of young researchers in medical areas and we give them sufficient financial support there is nothing they can';t do and there is no area of endeavour that can';t be occupied in the future by a famous Australian name.
[ends]