A big reason why governments spend up on medical research is Australians love health-related causes. We donated $1.96bn to them last year, making health the third category for individual giving, after religion ($3.197bn) and international aid ($2.108bn). In contrast, education and research receive 22 per cent of business giving, with causes receiving 12 per cent of individual’s money. The figures are in Miles McGregor-Lowndes and Marie Critall’s, An Examination of Tax-Deductible Donations Made By Individual Australian Taxpayers in 2014–15, for QUT.