Submission to the Select Committee on Productivity in Australia

This submission to the Select Committee on Productivity in Australia maintains that investment in health and medical research and innovation is productivity reform rather than an optional cost. Research Australia cites a return of close to $4 for every $1 invested, Australia’s ranking of 74th of 145 countries on the Economic Complexity Index despite being the 9th richest per capita, health spending of $270.5 billion in 2023–24, the finding that people with chronic disease are 60% more likely not to participate in the labour force, and a fall in gross expenditure on R&D from 1.88% to 1.69% of GDP over the past decade. It identifies gains through better population health, lower health costs, high-value industries and faster translation, and barriers including declining investment, fragmentation, poor data access and workforce insecurity. It notes that hospitals use only 3% of the data they generate and that the Productivity Commission estimates better use of electronic medical records could save up to $5.4 billion a year, and includes a case study of the Children’s Cancer Institute using large language models to extract research data from clinical reports. Recommendations are to elevate health and medical research as an enabler of productivity, align a national settlement strategy with Research Australia’s regional, rural, remote and very remote policy paper, fully implement the National Health and Medical Research Strategy and the Strategic Examination of R&D, develop longitudinal public R&D datasets, and fund its 2026–27 pre-budget recommendations, including $1.5 billion for prevention.