The government did not open a tender. Instead,documents released under freedom of information show Hunt’s office asked department bureaucrats to draw up a $24 million MRFF grant for research on ways to cut pressure on hospital emergency departments. The process was consistent with guidelines and rules for MRFF grants.
The resulting outline from the department,also obtained under freedom of information,noted clinics structured in a similar way offered “some of the most promising interventions”.
The outline noted the minister wanted the grant opportunity to be publicly offered in late January and ready for announcement in April.
When the grant was released publicly in February,the hospital was surprised at the process,but positive about its chances.
“I thought a tender would have been appropriate. The MRFF was not the typical route ... to receive funding to pay for care,” the source said.
“No responsible government would put out a $24 million taxpayer-funded opportunity to effectively submit in four weeks without a level of certainty about the specific projects they were keen to see funded.
“We took that to mean that our submission to the government was taken seriously,and we stood a good chance of receiving the funding.”
Adding to Morayfield’s confidence was the fact that sections of the grant selection criteria,obtained by this masthead,mirrored almost word-for-word the submission it had sent to Hunt’s office in December.
Hunt’s office also moved at speed,freedom of information documents show. They waived usual procedures around grant approval for all applicants. Bureaucrats used a “minimum viable timeline” – cutting the usual months to just weeks in a way it had also done for projects on bushfires and COVID-19.
Because all the year’s MRFF funding had already been spent,the grant was funded using money diverted from a clinical trial for women with genetic conditions. (The MRFF funded that trial the following year.)
Finally,the minister’s office directed the department to strip out a standard clause requiring applicants to have support from their local health department.
This was good news for Morayfield,because earlier that month Queensland’s Labor health minister wrote to another Liberal politician explaining she had cut Morayfield’s funding following a review of its performance and value for money.
After a tightening of MRRF rules in 2019,the health minister had the power to draw up medical research grants – including writing grants that only a single organisation could apply for – but the department of health would then vet and rank the applicants. The minister could then decide how far down the ladder they wanted to fund.
This meant that while the minister could propose the grants and,therefore,had significant influence,the outcome was still subject to some departmental input.
The project source also said the process and the eventual refusal made him sick to his stomach.
“Politics should be nowhere near this. And that might be naive. But ultimately,that was our entire motivation for doing this – to see care delivered,and to know we were doing some good,” the source said.
Having secured the money it needed from Labor,the hospital reopened in April.
Hunt’s spokesman said the health department had found 10 other projects met the program guidelines and its recommendations were accepted in full.
“The ALP decision to directly fund the private provider occurred after,and despite,the fact that the Department of Health had found that the Morayfield project was not ranked of sufficient merit to fund,” he said.
He said the federal government had on three occasions declined to fund the hospital.
The centre for excellence that never was
Others highlight the awarding of various ad hoc and non-competitive grants,where millions of dollars were handed out in accordance with the fund’s rules,as another weakness in its governance.
In the run-up to the 2019 election,analyststippedthe battle for the marginal seat of Braddon in northern Tasmania – with its margin of 1.7 per cent and a history of swinging – to play a key role in the Coalition’s bid for another term in government.
In 2018,Hunt and then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull flew to Burnie,in Braddon,to announce a new Centre for Excellence in Rural and Regional Health.
“It’s going to be based here,” Turnbull told the media. Funds for the centre would start to flow within weeks;it would allow the University of Tasmania to become “a global leader right here in Burnie,in rural and regional health”,Hunt added.
The centre would be funded with $2.4 million through a closed,non-competitive research grant from the Medical Research Future Fund. Three years later it would show up in election advertising from the local Liberal MP as another commitment “delivered as promised”.
But Burnie’s Centre for Excellence never opened,and does not exist.
The university had never applied for such a centre in Burnie,and did not want one. In fact,it already had a Centre for Rural Health based in Launceston and Hobart.
“Our view was,in many ways,we already had centres that covered the territory,” said the university’s Professor James Vickers. “It probably did not make a lot of sense spending a lot of money on developing a new centre.”
The university later asked the government to reallocate the money. It went instead to two other research projects:an obesity project based in Launceston,and a statewide dementia research project run by Vickers and based in Hobart.
A spokeswoman for the university said the two projects were consistent with the requirements of the grant.
A federal health department spokesman said the funding was consistent with Turnbull’s announcement of supporting “cutting-edge research,aimed at preventing health issues in regional and remote Australia”.
They said the department “provided the minister with advice on implementation and areas of focus for the proposed grant to the University of Tasmania” before the funding was announced.
The Microbiome Research Centre
In 2015,the St George and Sutherland Medical Research Foundation wascasting around for their “Big Aim”: a major research project.
It initially looked at developing a Centre for Next-Generation Healthcare,but was knocked back for government funding.
In 2016,renowned gastroenterologist and microbiome expert Professor Emad El-Omar was appointed chair of medicine at the local St George Hospital.
The foundation,working with El-Omar,hit on a new idea - a research centre devoted to the microbiome,the colony of gut bacteria that was becoming a hot research topic. Money poured in.
Between 2017 and 2018 the Coalition committed $6 million,some of it in closed non-competitive grants,to establish the foundation’s Microbiome Research Centre.
“You know how foundations seek support from politicians?” said El-Omar. “There was a commitment to that particular region to support a research project of some kind.”
Before it had opened,the government handed the centre another $2 million in MRFF funding for microbiome research – allocated as a “one-off/ad hoc” grant straight to the St George and Sutherland Medical Research Foundation.
Prior to 2016,the foundation had no track record of microbiome research. By comparison,researchers at the University of Queensland had published hundreds of papers on the subject.
“I remember when[the funding] emerged,and being very surprised,” said one microbiome researcher,granted anonymity to speak freely.
If the microbiome funding had been offered as a competitive grant,“they certainly wouldn’t have been the strongest competitors”,said another microbiome researcher.
Then prime minister Scott Morrison visited the foundation twice in 2018,including to announce the MRFF funding. “We’re doubling down,” he told media.
The similarly-named Centre for Microbiome Research,established at Queensland University of Technology in 2020,has not been so lucky – it has not received any direct government or MRFF funding.
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Sydney’s Microbiome Research Centre is on the edge of the electorate of Barton,held by Labor since 2016.
When Hunt announced $4.4 million to establish the centre in 2017,he did it standing next to David Coleman,Liberal MP for the neighbouring marginal seat of Banks,which has a boundary very close to the hospital.
“And our money,which David has fought for through a powerful campaign,will go to creating this centre,to turning it into a world-leading microbiota or Microbiome Research Centre,” Hunt said.
Coleman was also with the then prime minister when he announced the extra MRFF funding. He even got to officially open the centre.
El-Omar said he could not say if the fine electoral margin in Banks played a role in the centre winning funding.
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“It could be. I’m not an idiot,” said El-Omar. “It was an unmet need,and something that has been very successful since then. So I’m not going to complain about their motives.”
A spokesman for Coleman said he advocated for many organisations,including the St George and Sutherland Medical Research Foundation.
The health department said all grants followed the necessary assessments and recommendations from assessors.
The foundation declined to comment.
Hunt did not answer detailed questions about the Tasmanian centre or the microbiome project.
Liam Mannix’s Examine newsletter explains and analyses science with a rigorous focus on the evidence.Sign up to get it each week.