Monique Ryan asks Anthony Albanese (somewhat expected given the roundtable she held today with medical and university researchers)

My question is to the Prime Minister to be promised Australian medical research saves lives and boost the economy, it improves our domestic security and provides age the region stopping the Medical Research Future Fund established to support the set with a year.

Your Government is spending only $650 million annually.

Could you please tell the dozens of medical researchers in the gallery today, why it is you are withholding the support that we committed to, and the sector needs and deserves? the call health and ageing.

Mark Butler takes this one:

Thank you to the Prime Minister giving me the opportunity to answer members question was up can I say how much we value your experience and contributions to health policy generally but particularly the time you are taking to represent and advocate the interests of medical research Institute sector which has been in the building over the last several days.

You and I were both at the dinner the other night with a number of members at least on this side of the House. Senator Ruston was there also. This is a question you asked before over the last couple of weeks to me and to the Treasurer.

Our position has not changed. I do want to take the opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to the MRFF – this is an institution of which both sides of the House can be properly initiated the process to set it up when we were last in government.

I had ministerial responsibility for this area. To their credit it was put in place and now has a capital of about $24 billion by the former government and as you say, as the Member says, it distributes about $650 million each and every year. I heard some remarks release from the Member and a number of the institutes earlier today about the success rate and applicants that have not been able to receive funding from the MRFF as the Member well knows.

Success rates for all the government research funds are well short of 100%. Well short of 100% of good where the applicant’s are actually able to receive funding and I think actually the MRFF has a success rate above the others. It’s about 30%, has been about 30% through the course of its time. PARC I think has a success rate close to 20%, the MER EA from in HRM C of 50%.

We’d all like that to be higher. But the MR FF performs pretty well. As the Treasurer said last week though I think the government is taking this very seriously. As I said and the Treasurer said, we are pulling together a single United national health and medical research strategy under the leadership of Rosemary Hucks PAO. Former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health, I can’t believe the Leader of the Opposition is interjecting. Such is life. Once that strategy is delivered as a final document and it will be very shortly we will use that and a 10-year statutory review of the MRFF that the Treasurer and Minister for Finance recently received and published to consider a range of things including the matter that the Member has now raised a few times in Question Time over the last couple of weeks and was the subject of quite some advocacy by the medical research Institute also