The federal government’s main medical research agency provided no input into the Abbott government’s budget centrepiece, a $20 billion medical research endowment, despite being its primary intended beneficiary.
National Health and Medical Research Council chief executive Warwick Anderson told a Senate hearing on Tuesday that his organisation had not provided any advice to the government in relation to the creation of the Medical Research Future Fund, which was announced in the May budget.
The Abbott government plans to invest savings from health measures – including the $7 Medicare fee and cuts to hospital funding – into the medical research fund until it reaches a balance of $20 billion, which is expected in 2020.
Budget documents say the capital of the fund will be protected but earnings – which are expected to reach $1 billion a year by 2022 – will be allocated to medical research, “primarily by boosting funding for the National Health and Medical Research Council”.