Subject:
Medical research grants
E&OE...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well thank you very much professor, the Health Minister, professor thank you very, very much. One of the good things about a government not having any debt is that it doesn't have to pay interest and therefore it can use the interest to fund other things. I know that this Government has a reputation, deservedly so, for reforms in areas like taxation, and industrial relations, and all those sorts of things, but one of the areas where I believe this Government has been very, very, active and which I am particularly proud, is the way in which over a long period of time, particularly in response to the Wills Report, it's dramatically increased funding for medical research. I am very happy to say that by 2009, the amount of money spent on medical research in Australia will have increased by five-fold since 1996, and what the Minister and I are announcing today is the outcome of the latest round of national health and medical research grants. They were foreshadowed through the increase that was announced in the last Budget, and what we are announcing today is some $561 million of grants that have been determined by the council, and I want to thank it for the tremendous job that it does. It's a process with great integrity, and it's a process that is respected in the profession and is respected in the community. These grants will go to 50 institutions in every state for research beginning in 2008, and let me stress, this money was provided in the last Budget, and what I am announcing today is the outcome of the assessment process by the council arising from that additional money. $336 million of it will go to 660 project grants to 49 research institutions; $106 million for 12 program grants for high calibre teams undertaking large-scale collaborative research, including research into cardiovascular disease and Type 1 diabetes, there will be two prestigious Australia Fellowship awards worth $4 million each to two outstanding Australian researchers Dr Matthew Cooper and Professor Wendy Hoy and there will be more than $50 million for 88 research fellowships to support individual researchers. So it is a very, very big announcement and it covers the whole gamut of medical research in this country. I am very pleased to say that, particularly as we're here at the Heart Research Institute where Professor Phillip Barter and his team have been awarded a $9.9 million grant in this latest round to study something we're all interested in and that is the physiology of heart disease and the impact of different types of cholesterol to try and prevent heart diseases and heart attacks. And Tony and I, as we've made our way here and spoken to the numerous researchers, have learned quite a lot about the difference between good and bad cholesterol and we hope that will stand us personally in good stead as well as the rest of the community. They will also be looking at important aspects of cardiovascular disease. And I am pleased to say that that $9.9 million follows the grant that the Government made to the Heart Research Institute for development and expansion of its facilities and its taking advantage of that and I understand its moving out of this building.
But can I just say the return that the community gets out of medical research is fantastic. We have for a long time, to use that old clich