Tuesday, 30 August 2022

 Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (15:37): The plan I am proposing is to establish AUKUS health. The aim is to deliver worldwide health breakthroughs in a time of global pandemic and accelerate opportunities from the Cancer Moonshot. Results can be driven by leveraging the relationship Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America have forged for defence and national security into health security. The AUKUS health strategy aims to harness collaboration founded through the Cancer Moonshot initiative to establish a brain gain between Australia, the UK and the US. My original proposal that Australia partner the White House and the Cancer Moonshot brought Joe Biden to Melbourne in 2016 for the opening of the billion-dollar jewel in Australia’s medical research crown, our only comprehensive cancer centre, and internationalised this quest. Extending the Cancer Moonshot through AUKUS would be defining in the mission to crack the code of one of the world’s biggest killers.

The next step is for Australia to partner President Biden in his plan to translate the US model designed for national security, leading to discoveries including the internet and GPS under a defence department agency, to focus on health. This collaboration would target breakthroughs to prevent, detect and treat diseases including Alzheimer’s, diabetes and cancer under the National Institutes of Health. President Biden’s method is to adapt artificial intelligence and other technologies to supercharge breakthroughs predicted to outstrip half a century’s advances in the next decade. The UK has €2 billion it wants to invest in science. My proposal is for Australia to drive this plan to deliver AUKUS health.