$20b fund for future trapped in party row over use
The fate of the Abbott Government’s $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund hangs in the balance, with growing concerns the process to divvy up funding could become politicised.
Palmer United Party’s WA senator Dio Wang has joined Labor and the Greens in raising questions over the governance arrangements for the fund.
The Government plans to pour savings from the health system into the fund, with it expected to swell to $20 billion by mid-2020.
The fund is meant to start operations on August 1, with an initial $10 million to be distributed to researchers in 2015-16.
But legislation creating the fund has stalled in Parliament while the Government considers Labor amendments to beef up the fund’s autonomy and oversight.
Shadow health minister Catherine King argues under the current legislation the health and finance ministers would be able to decide what research received grants from a $20 billion “slush fund”.
“The way that the Government has established it leaves no assurance that funds will not simply be channelled to fund the coalition’s own election commitments and pet projects,” she told Parliament last week.
Senator Wang, an enthusiastic supporter of the fund’s objectives, revealed governance was also a sticking point for him.
“The minister seems to have too much power in instructing the fund or the board to make decisions,” he told [|The West Australian ] .
Senator Wang cited how a minister may try to curry favour with voters by choosing to fund research for a cure into diseases that had become a “hot topic” among the public at the expense of other diseases.
Greens leader and health spokesman Richard Di Natale raised at last week’s Senate estimates hearing his concerns about governance and whether a parallel process for the fund would duplicate the work of the National Health and Medical Research Council.
But Health Minister Sussan Ley said the Government had made it clear an advisory board would be set up to guide the research future fund on disbursements, with further details to be announced soon. She said the board would include representation from the NHMRC.
