Category: Australian News

The Morrison Government is giving Australians new support on their IVF journey, providing Medicare rebates for testing services that can help prevent them passing serious genetic disorders onto their child.
Until now, people who know they are carriers of serious genetic disorders could only access these testing services if they were able to pay privately.
From 1 November 2021, people will be able to claim a Medicare rebate for five new Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) items for new Pre-implantation Genetic Testing (PGT) services provided within the existing IVF process.
Types of genetic disorders able to be tested include, but are not limited to, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular atrophy, fragile X, neurofibromatosis and Huntington disease.
PGT is a sophisticated scientific technique which can be used to test embryos for either a specific known single gene condition or chromosome variation. This allows chromosomally healthy embryos or those unaffected by a specific genetic disorder to be selected for implantation during an IVF cycle, maximising the chance of a healthy baby.
The Government is providing $95.9 million so that PGT services can be reimbursed through Medicare. This implements recommendations from the independent, expert Medical Services Advisory Committee.
This change will give real, practical support to individuals and couples on their fertility journey. It will help ease the financial strain on people using IVF to conceive.
Under the direction of a medical specialist, Medicare funding will support individuals or couples who carry a risk of passing on a serious genetic or chromosomal disorder to their child for which there is no cure and which causes a severe limitation on the quality of life.
Other IVF services already funded under Medicare will not change under the new arrangements.
More information is available at MBS Online.

The next phase of the Australian Government’s vaccine communication campaign launches today, with the message ‘we’re almost there Australia’, reminding people that with increasing vaccinations we are able to return to a more normal, free life.
Whilst we have reached Phase B of the National Plan with seventy per cent of the eligible general population now fully vaccinated and more than 86.1 per cent have had at least one dose, we need to ensure people receive their second dose and we reach the 80 per cent fully vaccinated mark.
The advertisements create a sense of encouragement and a feeling of enjoying more freedoms as Australia opens up, as Australians start to return to travelling overseas, birthday parties, weddings, and a family Christmas.  It provides a positive, hopeful tone, with a touch of humour, to motivate those who are more hesitant, to get vaccinated to avoid missing out on greater freedoms.
The “Spread Freedom” campaign will air from tonight and materials will be shared across all media channels.
To further encourage First Australians to get vaccinated against COVID-19, the Government is also launching a new project entitled “For all of us’.
The project features a number of high profile Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians who have come together to encourage their mob to get vaccinated.
Model Samantha Harris, musician Baker Boy, chef Nornie Bero, street artist Tori-Jay Mordey and renowned didgeridoo player and vocalist William Barton all encourage further vaccination uptake and seek to combat vaccine hesitancy.
The project conveys the simple message ‘For our past, for our future, for all of us. Get vaccinated for COVID-19’.
Committees representing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, people with a disability and the multicultural communities are being consulted regularly to ensure the vaccination messaging is clear, appropriate and disseminated through the best communication channels to reach all Australians.
The communications campaign also supports on-the-ground engagement with the public, including information kiosks at shopping centres and events, and community in-reach activities with CALD and Indigenous communities.
The Australian Government’s comprehensive COVID-19 vaccination communications campaign is being supported with an investment of more than $90 million.
The Spread Freedom and “For all of us” materials will be available on Health.gov.au from 24 October 2021.

Australian Greens Education spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has responded to the Education Minister’s latest attempt to whitewash Australian history and pressure the independent curriculum authority to sanitise what’s taught in our schools.
Senator Faruqi said:
“Alan Tudge’s ever-escalating culture war is offensive, pathetic and ahistorical. It should be challenged by everyone who cares about the integrity of our education system.
“Students should be learning critical thinking, not a sanitised version of history. Tudge clearly sees it as his mission as Education Minister to fight what he considers a ‘woke’ agenda in education. This is an alarming approach to say the least.
“The Education Minister’s obsession with the national curriculum reflects several of his Liberal predecessors. But if Christopher Pyne was famously ‘hands-on’, Alan Tudge is ‘gloves off’.
“Right-wing politicians the world over are currently waging these wars. The confected outrage over ‘critical race theory’ in the United States is a case in point. It can escalate and infringe on the civil liberties of teachers and school communities.
“I worry about the effect this has on the independence of ACARA. It’s their job to dispassionately draft the curriculum in consultation with experts. Tudge’s ideological campaign of parliament speeches, TV interviews and newspaper op-eds is unprecedented and puts pressure on them.
“Of course, the great outrage is that while the Education Minister has been fighting this history war, universities have continued to lose thousands of jobs. Schools are grappling with immense challenges in the pandemic. Education is in crisis and the Minister is missing in action.”

Seventeen multidisciplinary research teams will each receive $5 million in funding from the Australian Government to find solutions to major questions in human health that cannot be answered by individual investigators.
The Minister for Health and Aged Care, Greg Hunt, today announced the award of $85 million for 17 projects through the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Synergy Grant scheme.
“Collaboration is at the heart of science today,” said Minister Hunt. “Many of our greatest health challenges will only be solved by collaboration between people with different skills and different perspectives.
“These grants bring together teams of Australia’s best health and medical researchers from across disciplines to address health issues as diverse as the link between the gut microbiome and lung inflammation and creating new drugs to fight the emerging viruses and antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
“One project at WEHI will support an exceptional team of experts in computational protein design, structural biology, immunology and brain surgery who will together help achieve better outcomes for those Australians facing the devastating diagnosis of brain cancer.”
The research team at WEHI, led by Associate Professor Misty Jenkins, aims to have one or more novel CAR T-cell therapies to take into clinical trials in Australia to treat glioblastoma, which is the most common primary brain tumour and has a low survival rate.
The team aims to develop cell-based immunotherapies that will potently and specifically eliminate tumours with minimal damage to healthy tissue and will support long-term remissions.
Each Synergy Grant team receives $5 million over 5 years, with funding commencing in 2022.
The Synergy Grant scheme was introduced in 2019 and is designed to support highly collaborative teams of diverse researchers to work together to address major problems in any area of human health and medical research, from discovery to translation. Notably, over 50 per cent of the Synergy Grants awarded in this round are led by women.
NHMRC CEO Professor Anne Kelso said the success of female lead investigators in the latest Synergy Grant outcomes was encouraging for all as well as for many other women starting out on their research careers.
“The projects funded today are exciting examples of what is possible when different disciplines and perspectives are brought together to solve a problem. While the Synergy Grant outcomes for female lead investigators are significant, NHMRC continues to work on ways to ensure women are equally represented at all careers levels and across all our grant schemes,” Professor Kelso said.
Today’s announcement includes funding for research at:

• The University of Queensland where Professor Kate Schroder will lead a multidisciplinary team to create new drugs to fight the emerging viruses and antibiotic-resistant superbugs that are major challenges for human health in the 21st century
• The University of Melbourne where Professor Ingrid Scheffer will lead a team bringing computational expertise to integrate multiple biological measurements from patients with severe forms of epilepsy, revealing underlying disease dynamics and targeting new treatment approaches
• The University of Western Australia and Telethon Kids Institute where Professor Jonathan Carapetis will bring together a diverse team of experts to tackle the social determinants that underlie rheumatic heart disease – a serious disease caused by preventable Strep A infections and disproportionately affecting Indigenous Australians – by investigating how environmental health and housing interventions can stop Strep A spread
• The South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) where Professor Alex Brown will lead a national consortium to build Indigenous leadership in genomics through empowering communities to understand genomic variation, identify multi-omic signatures of disease and translate these findings to health care, ensuring Indigenous people can lead genomic research on their terms
• University of Technology Sydney (UTS) where Professor Philip Hansbro will lead a team that will examine the link between gut disease and emphysema and how the altered microbiome can be modified with dietary interventions, with the most effective to be tested in clinical trials.

Community groups and organisations with innovative ways to encourage more people to sign up as an organ donor were launched today on Saffron Day, an event that honours seven-year-old organ donor Deyaan Udani.
Saffron Day, organised by Deyaan’s family and friends, received funding through the 2021 Community Awareness Grants program. Deyaan suffered a brain haemorrhage while on holiday with his family in India in 2016, his organs went on to save four others.
The national day, held on 22 October each year, aims to encourage multicultural communities to talk about donation with their family and register to be an organ and tissue donor.
“To know that Deyaan and his sister had learnt about organ donation at their school in Sydney and discussed it with their parents, before he tragically passed away, highlights the importance of having a family discussion,” Dr Gillespie said.
“Deyaan’s family knew he wanted to be an organ donor and his family were able to fulfill his wishes and save the lives of others. It would have been a very difficult decision for the family to make if they hadn’t already spoken about it.
“Saffron Day, like all of our community grant recipients, offer a unique opportunity to increase reach and engagement about organ and tissue donation with key target audience groups – both a national and more local level.”
Applications are now open for up to $750,000 for community-based initiatives in 2022 including up to three-years of funding for national events to encourage more Australians to say “yes” to organ donation.
Dr Gillespie said the 2022 criteria favoured organisations that can develop and implement either broad-reaching national events, media, public relations or digital activities, research/behavioural change projects or the development of education resources.
“It’s important we continue to build a broad and diverse network of organisations and community groups that can provide new and creative ways of raising awareness about organ and tissue donation across Australia,” Dr Gillespie said.
“We’re looking to target organisations that can engage key audience groups who have low representation on the Australian Organ Donor Register, including young people, First Nations Peoples and multicultural groups.”
Saffron Day is just one of many examples of grant recipients since the program’s inception in 2009.
Other recipients from 2021 include the development of First Nations Peoples videos, a Valentine’s Day campaign targeting young men, a national Gift of Life walk, the production of new education resources for Year 9 and 10 students and radio broadcasting into First Nations communities.
Minister Gillespie said it only takes one minute to register as an organ and tissue donor at donatelife.gov.au or through myGov or the Medicare Express Plus app when downloading your COVID-19 vaccination certificate.
Applications for 2022 funding open today, Friday 22 October 2021 and close at 10:00am AEDT, Wednesday, 17 November 2021. Multi-year funding of up to three years is available for national events applications. Successful applicants will be announced in February 2022.
For more information about the 2022 Community Awareness Grants, including the assessment criteria and the application process, visit donatelife.gov.au/grants.

The Australian Government is calling on the nation’s best and brightest mental health researchers, clinicians, implementation experts, and consumer and carer representatives to help inform the future of research in this vital area.
Expressions of interest are invited for the next Expert Advisory Panel (EAP) for the Medical Research Future Fund’s Million Minds Mental Health Research Mission.
The Government is seeking a diverse panel with a range of skills and backgrounds to meet the objectives of the Million Minds Mission.
The Mission’s aim is to identify – through research – new approaches to prevent, detect, diagnose, treat, and recover from mental ill health.
Mental health issues take a huge toll, individually and collectively, across the country. Almost half of all Australian adults will face mental ill health at some point, and the estimated cost to Australia’s economy is up to $220 billion each year.
The Million Minds Mission is a $125 million 10-year initiative which has already provided almost $65 million for a diverse range of mental health research projects, including eating disorders, suicide prevention and the impact of COVID-19.
The EAP will advise how the remaining $60 million will be focused on research that can address gaps in knowledge to support mental health care to provide better outcomes for individuals and communities, taking into account the outcomes already delivered.
The panel will refresh the Mission’s existing Roadmap and develop an Implementation Plan to clearly identify priorities for research investment.
The Government is seeking Australian applicants from a variety of backgrounds including mental health researchers, mental health clinicians, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with mental health expertise, rural and remote mental health researchers and clinicians, consumer representatives with lived experience of mental ill-health and those involved in translating mental health research into practice or policy.
Expressions of interest open on 22 October and close on 26 November. The EAP will be appointed from 2022. Instructions on how to apply are available at https://health.gov.au/resources/publications/expression-of-interest-mrff-million-minds-mental-health-research-mission-expert-advisory-panel

The Morrison Government is investing $40.5 million for a new Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) item to improve the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension (high blood pressure).
From 1 November, Australians will be able to claim rebates for ambulatory blood pressure measurement, which monitors a patient’s blood pressure continuously over 24 hours through a wearable device to diagnose if they are hypertensive or not.
Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is the best available test to confirm the diagnosis of hypertension and more effective than in-clinic blood pressure monitoring. It will save lives and improve lives.
In Australia, about 1 in 3 people aged 18 and over have high blood pressure. Men are more likely to have uncontrolled high blood pressure. 1 in 4 men have uncontrolled high blood pressure, compared with 1 in 5 women.
It is a risk factor for chronic conditions, including stroke, coronary heart disease, heart failure and chronic kidney disease.
Minister for Health and Aged Care, Greg Hunt, said, the Morrison Government was committed to ensuring Australians can access the latest in health care diagnosis and treatment.
“This is a significant development in hypertension awareness and care in Australia and we anticipate that this listing will benefit more than 400,000 Australians in the first 12 months,” Minister Hunt said.
“The Morrison Government’s commitment to Medicare is rock solid and we will continue to ensure that Australians have access to access to new medicines and treatments.
“Australia has a world-class health system and our government will continue to ensure it remains that way.”
The new MBS item includes consultation, fitting of the device, analysis of the data, generation of a report and development of a treatment plan.
The Government agreed to add Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring to the MBS following recommendations from the independent Medical Services Advisory Committee (MSAC). We’d also like to acknowledge the work of the High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia, including Professor Geoffrey Head, Dr Anastasia Mihailidou, Professor Michael Stowasser and Professor Markus Schlaich.
A number of new MBS items are expected to be available from November 1 2021.

The LNP has gagged debate on a bill to stop the destructive fossil fuel project PEP-11, despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Liberal MPs Lucy Wicks, Jason Falinski, Trent Zimmerman and Dave Sharma having all voiced opposition to the project.
Greens spokesperson for Healthy Oceans, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, said:
“Coastal communities right around the nation are opposing offshore fossil fuel projects in this critical time of climate emergency.
“After parading about NSW pretending to listen to and agree with communities unanimously opposed to PEP-11, Scott Morrison has yet again proven that he cannot be trusted to walk the talk on matters of climate change. There’s not a shred of legitimacy left in the bloke.
“Scott Morrison’s inability to stay true to his word on PEP-11 is symbolic of the Liberals’ subservience to the Nationals, who are now effectively holding coastal electorates held by NSW Liberal members to ransom.
“It’s becoming a hallmark of this Government to gag debate any time the going gets tough or it is faced with an iota of scrutiny.
“Although today’s bill didn’t get to see the light of day in the Lower House, the fight is not over. I will be introducing a bill into the Senate to ban all offshore oil and gas drilling and seismic testing.
“There is clearly broad community support across the political spectrum for a ban on seismic testing. Earlier this year the Australian Senate passed a motion supporting local fishing communities calling for a moratorium on all future seismic testing unless the corporation responsible for the oil or gas exploration can prove there will be no impact on local fishing stocks.
“The Greens will never stay silent while our oceans are under siege from big, greedy oil and gas corporations who buy their power with hefty political donations, especially not in midst of a climate emergency.”

Building a better Australia demands vision, ambition and a concrete plan. Thursday marks the 49th anniversary of the opening of the biggest nation-building project conducted in Australia – construction of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme.
This colossal undertaking – including seven power stations, 16 dams, 80km of aqueducts, 145km of tunnels and 1600km of roads and railway tracks – transformed Australia by providing electricity that drove post-war reconstruction and development of modern industry. It encouraged the rise of multicultural Australia, with migrants from 30 nations making up two-thirds of the workforce.
The Snowy was a visionary project conceived by Ben Chifley’s Labor government. When Chifley produced legislation in 1949, the conservatives, led by Robert Menzies, voted against it. Menzies, the father of the Liberal Party, refused to attend the launch. Fortunately, when he became prime minister Menzies accepted the project’s nation-building value, put aside politics and got to work. But his initial folly typified a weakness of the Liberal and National parties: their preference for politics over action.

Short-termism explains why the current Coalition government dismantled the former Labor government’s plan for a 21st-century, fibre-based National Broadband Network and replaced it with a second-rate system based on 19th-century copper technology.
It’s why it has spent a decade talking down climate action for political gain, ignoring opportun­ities for jobs and economic growth that come from investing in cheap, renewable energy. And it is why, after more than eight years in office, Scott Morrison has failed to articulate a long-term vision for the future of this country.
Australia needs a plan to rebuild our economy. It’s not enough to return to the pre-Covid situation. We must build back stronger, addressing weakness exposed by the pandemic. This is at the core of Labor’s plan for a future made in Australia.
It is extraordinary that Australia lacks the capacity to manufacture mRNA vaccines or to be self-sufficient when it comes to basic medical supplies. And it speaks to our lack of federal leadership and planning that most of the resources we mine and the food we grow is sent overseas in bulk when we could be adding value to these exports through manufacturing, creating jobs and new businesses.
The Coalition government has made our nation too reliant on imports, leaving us isolated and vulnerable at the end of precarious international supply chains. A Labor government will change this, taking inspiration from Chifley’s example of long-term thinking in the national interest.
We’ll work with states, businesses and trade unions to revitalise the economy. We can become more self-reliant and self-sufficient. We can become a renewable energy superpower. Labor’s ambition is economic transformation that directly benefits working families, driven by the rise of cheap, renewable energy. This will make all businesses more competitive, create secure jobs, lower household power bills and open up new opportunities.
To help businesses seize those opportunities, we’ll create a $15bn national reconstruction fund, providing loans and other support to new enterprises in areas such as value-adding, renewable energy, defence industries and transport.
Australia has the resources and brainpower to make everything from wind turbines to electric batteries, train carriages to military hardware, medicines to macaroni. The NRF will help take these industries to the next level.
As part of our plan to create secure jobs, Labor will ensure Australians get the skills to work in these new jobs by increasing investment in training. We’ll also use the commonwealth’s considerable purchasing power to support Australian businesses.
Under our 10-point Buy Australian plan, a Labor government will prioritise, wherever possible, use of local suppliers when purchasing defence materiel, medic­ines and medical equipment as well as transport goods such as buses, trains and ferries. We’ll work with state governments to ensure that when they spend federal money they adhere to our Buy Australian policies.
While Menzies initially resisted Chifley’s design of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, it is to former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s credit that he committed to expand the Snowy project. However, Morrison has done nothing to ensure Snowy 2.0 will be efficiently connected to the national electricity grid. It will be finished in 2025 but won’t be connected until 2027. That’s absurd.
But that’s the thing about vision. It’s not about your next media conference or ticking off a list of politically convenient concepts. Vision is about planning for the long term – getting it right for today and setting up a better and more prosperous future.

The Australian Government has secured access to two additional COVID-19 treatments to support the National Plan to Transition Australia’s COVID-19 response, following expert medical advice.
Under a new agreement with Roche Products Pty Ltd, Australia will be supplied with 15,000 doses of the COVID-19 antibody-based therapy, Ronapreve.
First supply of this treatment is expected to be available by the end of this month through an initial shipment of 5,000 doses and will be held in the National Medical Stockpile.
Use of this treatment will occur in line with the regulatory approval by Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and advice from the National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce.
Ronapreve is a combination of two monoclonal antibodies – casirivimab and imdevimab. It is designed to block infectivity of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. The two monoclonal antibodies bind to two different sites of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and flag the virus as ‘foreign’, prompting the body’s immune response.
Ronapreve can be administered intravenously for COVID-19 patients in a health care facility and is expected to be targeted for use in unvaccinated people who are at risk of developing severe disease. Treatment with ronapreve has been shown to reduce the risk of hospitalisation and death by up to 70% in patients with confirmed COVID-19.
In addition, the Australian Government has secured access to 500,000 treatment courses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 oral antiviral drug, to be used in combination with the protease inhibitor drug ritonavir, subject to regulatory approval by the TGA.
This treatment which is still undergoing clinical trials is expected to help to reduce the severity or onset of illness in adults who contract, or have been exposed to, COVID-19. It is expected to be available over the course of 2022, subject to final clinical trials being completed by Pfizer and the necessary TGA approval process.
This oral antiviral treatment is taken every 12 hours for five days and is designed to block an enzyme the virus needs in order to multiply early in its lifecycle.
Co-administration with a low dose of ritonavir is expected to help slow the metabolism, or breakdown, of the treatment in order for it to remain active in the body for longer periods of time at higher concentrations to combat the virus.
Ritonavir has been used extensively in combination with other antivirals for other viral diseases to help slow metabolism in a similar way.
On 1 October 2021, the TGA granted provisional determination to Pfizer Australia in relation to this treatment which means that Pfizer can apply to the TGA for approval through this fast track approval process once the clinical trials are complete.
Whilst vaccination remains the best protection against COVID-19 our Government continues work to ensure that Australians have early access to safe and effective treatments as they are made available. These agreements reinforces our strong response to managing COVID-19 outbreaks and ensures that Australia benefits from new pharmaceutical technologies.
As with all COVID-19 treatments, both of these medications will be rigorously assessed by the TGA for safety, quality and effectiveness before it can be registered for use in Australia.
The TGA is treating all COVID-19 treatment applications with the greatest priority as part of the Department of Health’s response to the pandemic.
Following regulatory approval by the TGA, Ronapreve will join other COVID-19 treatments including sotrovimab and remdesivir that are already available to health professionals, through the National Medical Stockpile to help treat people with COVID-19.
Australia has also secured an advanced purchase agreement for 300,000 courses of the promising oral COVID-19 treatment Molnupiravir for supply in 2022 subject to TGA approval.
These purchase agreements have been supported by the Science and Industry Technical Advisory Group, which is the Australian Government’s expert group advising on COVID-19 vaccine and treatment purchases.
Further review of the clinical guidelines for use of these treatments in Australia will be undertaken by the National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce.