Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank him for his interjection. I have noticed a rather strange process in this chamber since we have swapped sides, so I am just going with the flow, Sir. Thank you for the encouragement. I recall being on the receiving end of questions, and it was a courteous question and answer process. It seems to be a remarkably different process this year, but allow me to persist, if I may. I thank him for his encouragement.

A couple of issues are of particular interest. One is the Commercial Ready program overseen by AusIndustry. It came as an enormous shock to many in the business community that a program that had offered so much in terms of encouragement for innovation, for new technology development and for the very goals that this new government talks about—and the Commercial Ready program was actually a bit of meat on the bones of those words—had been cut. From contact with businesses not only in my electorate but across Australia, I understand that there does not seem to be any alternative pathway for people to get that assistance. I have had conveyed to me, Minister, examples where AusIndustry officials—whom I have always found to be very professional, very engaging and in touch with enterprises including those in my own community—were reassuring people that they were in the mix, that things were going well and that the decision-making process was the same as it had been, only to be forced to make a rather sheepish phone call a couple of days later to say, ‘The program has been axed by this government.’

The work in developing innovations and securing the economic benefits that are derived from them will possibly get some help through to the proof-of-concept stage. So the idea, the innovation and the creative work get to that point. Commercial Ready was then able to pick up that proof-of-concept work, prepare it for the marketplace and actually give it the opportunity to fulfil its potential. With that gone, many industries—not only in my portfolio area of the information and digital economy but beyond—are left wondering; they are left scratching. One of my many questions to the minister is: what do these people do now? There was no consultation about the cancellation of this program. There was no transition period that allowed people to adjust their business strategy. As he would know, it takes some time to develop these innovations and bring them to the point where they not only achieve what they aim to achieve but are prepared for the marketplace.

That leads me to the other areas of questioning. In the area of commercial readiness, what has happened with those programs? What happened at the advisory committee meetings between 28 April and 13 May? Who was there? Also, what actually happened to the applications considered at those meetings that were approved and recommended? There had been some indication given to the companies involved that they were in the mix, only for them to then find out that they had been dropped like a hot spud. They have nowhere else to go and are ringing me wondering whom they turn to.

Never has there been so much fog around an industry as the Rudd government has created for the auto industry. They are being bombarded by inquiries. Seemingly political stunts propel the car industry into the political topic of the day. It has to deal with not only an industry inquiry, for which it does not have the analytical horsepower that the Productivity Commission could bring, but also a bunch of fellow travellers—who I am sure are very well intended. I wonder where the analysis and policy rigour are coming from for that industry inquiry. They are getting mixed signals. The minister is one day making statements about the despairing climate of manufacturing and other aspects of the industry, only to follow up the next day by saying it is a wonderful, vibrant area of our economy and things have never been better. Which one is it? Which of these interventions into the car industry should the industry be focusing on? The green car fund, with no funding guidelines, has allocated money well in advance of the time frame within which it was indicated those funds would become available. (Time expired)

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