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

The opposition certainly support the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2008 being read a second time, and we lend our support to the measures contained within the bill. In essence, it alters some of the funding arrangements that are supported through the ARC to help foster high-quality research activity as part of Australia’s national innovation system.

As the second reading speech outlines, there are three key measures in this bill. The first is the establishment and resourcing of the Rudd government’s election commitment Future Fellowships. The second is the introduction of a new method of indexation to existing amounts that have been appropriated in the act. The third is to add an additional year to the financial forward estimates that already accompany this bill and were established and resourced during the Howard government years. The coalition supports each of those provisions.

The ARC’s role is to administer those appropriations under the bill and to identify the priority areas for the allocation of research assistance. The bill in effect adds $326 million, being a new fourth year, to the funding and also to the Future Fellowships program. The Australian Research Council’s primary purpose is the administration of around $600 million in grants annually to the Australian science and research community, and this bill provides the mechanisms for that to occur.

The coalition, the former Howard government, had a proud record when it came to science and research in Australia, and it is pleasing to see that this measure by the Rudd government simply carries forward and builds upon the positive work of the former government. In the Howard government’s 2001 white paper Backing Australia’s ability: an innovation action plan for the future,funds available to the Australian Research Council for science and research grants were doubled from roughly $300 million per annum to around $600 million per annum. While the Rudd government and Labor may claim that this bill appropriates $950 million for science and research, in reality about $600 million of it is merely a continuation of the coalition government’s policy.

So the clarity that needs to be brought to this bill is not only that it is a step in the right direction but, more importantly, that it represents about the only positive thing that the Rudd government has done in the area of innovation and in research and development. It needs to be contrasted, I think, with the very worrying and short-sighted decision that saw the axing of the $700 million Commercial Ready program. That was a devastating blow to many people who found it not only an enormous surprise but a new impediment that they had to overcome to take innovations that had got to a proof of concept stage—that is, proven to do what it had been hoped they would do—into a commercial ready stage where they could be taken out into the commercial world and have that proof of concept innovation applied with a view to generating wealth and opportunity for our country.

That $700 million cut to the Commercial Ready program has hit hard even in my own community, where companies involved in the information, telecommunications and communications area were doing all that was asked of them. They were achieving all of the benchmarks, fulfilling all of the requirements and making all of the progress that was expected of an innovative firm to take a concept, prove its functionality through that proof of concept stage and then to present its work to the government to see if support could have been available through the Commercial Ready program. With the abandonment of that program, a number of firms in my electorate are wondering where they turn to. We have been actively trying to assist them with other avenues of support. The work and the quality of it is something that was admired and valued by the previous government, but now we get to this Commercial Ready void. Taking that next step from validating an innovation and a new technology past that proof of concept stage into its commercial readiness position is an added challenge and burden. On top of that, the $63 million that has been ripped out of the CSIRO and the trimming in ANSTO as well as, in the area of my responsibilities, the changing of the tax treatment for software depreciation—all of those things—send a worrying signal about innovation.

I note the Deputy Speaker raising his eyebrow. Thank you for that eyebrow-lift, Mr Deputy Speaker Adams. This bill is positive in that it is a positive contribution to the innovation, contrasted and, I suppose, juxtaposed with the things that are not so flash and have taken some of the wind out of the innovation sail of our country and our economy.

The thing that the opposition is very interested in is the fact that these carefully ‘fully costed and funded’—I think that was the term before the election—initiatives around Future Fellowships actually come in at a figure quite different from what Labor said they would prior to the election, so perhaps ‘fully costed and funded’ was a slogan rather than an accurate validation of the estimates. But the funding is there for those new Future Fellowship programs. For those with an interest in those programs, that would see funding made available for what I think would be characterised as mid-career research experts—funding that provides for salary as well as on-cost and support for the host institution. We are quite optimistic that that will be a very positive step in the right direction. Those scholarships will be allocated against priorities that are to be established by the ARC. We in the opposition look with interest to see how those scholarships will in fact be targeted, how the ARC will formulate and articulate those priorities and the extent to which the scholarship allocations truly reflect those priorities.

That is all ahead of us, and we look forward to seeing how that new scheme will perform. It will provide new opportunities for mid-career researchers of significant ability to undertake important research here in Australia. It recognises the connectedness between the research professional and the host institution and provides funding for both. I think that is a positive step in the right direction, with resources available for the host institution and for things that might not be immediately apparent such as relocations of a scientist—where not only is there research funding to support their salaries and their endeavours but the infrastructure that is needed to carry out that work is supported—and very practical things such as relocation expenses where there is a need for that. We think that is all encouraging news. We are hopeful and optimistic that the potential of that measure will be met and that those ARC priorities will be clearly articulated and reflected in the allocation of those scholarships, and we wait with interest to see the success or otherwise of the Future Fellowships program in action.

The opposition lends its support. We view this as a non-controversial bill. We hope this is an early sign of a change of attitude in the government to a positive disposition towards innovation rather than those hostile cuts and actions that have been taken through the budget. We lend our support to this bill and encourage the parliament to have it passed speedily.

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