Uncertainty for the Medical Research Future Fund with Labor expressing significant concern over the Government's approach to its creation.
The Abbott Government introduced the Medical Research Future Fund Bill 2015 earlier this week, needing to secure parliamentary support for its passage before the end of June to ensure its creation on 1 August this year.
The MRFF was announced in last year's Budget, funded with $20 billion in savings from the health portfolio over the rest of the decade, with the ultimate goal of providing annual additional funding of $1 billion for Australian health and medical research.
The proposed funding mechanism, which included the controversial and now scrapped GP patient co-payment, has generated significant political and stakeholder opposition.
However, the medical research community, including AusBiotech, have strongly welcomed the Government's ongoing commitment to the MRFF.
During parliamentary debate on Thursday, Labor moved to amend the Bill, indicating its overall support but noting that creation of the MRFF relies on "cuts to vital health programs" and that it "does not define medical research and innovation in the way in which the government has itself described it."
According to Shadow Health Minister Catherine King, "The lack of any formal role in this legislation for the National Health and Medical Research Council in the way the bill has been drafted is something that Labor finds deeply concerning, and anybody who cares at all about health and medical research and has any integrity in this place should have concerns about it as well."
The Bill, while passing the House of Representatives with the Government exercising its majority to 'guillotine' debate, will be considered by the Senate in the next two weeks, where it is likely to face significant additional scrutiny.