Maxine McKew (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Child Care) Share this | Hansard source

I rise, as the last speaker, to speak in support of the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2008 and to sum up debate on it. I thank all speakers for their contribution to this important debate. This bill provides extra funding of around $950 million over the forward estimates for the Australian Research Council to implement the Future Fellowships funding scheme and for indexation and continued funding of the ARC’s funding schemes. It is a measure that underpins the delivery of the Future Fellowships scheme and, as such, provides much needed funding which will support researchers of high capability, particularly those classified as mid-career researchers.

Commencing in 2009, up to 200 new future fellowships will be awarded per year. Over a five-year period, from 2009-2013, Future Fellowships will offer four-year funding of up to $140,000 a year to 1,000 top Australian and international researchers in the middle of their careers. In addition, each of the administering organisations will receive funding of up to $50,000 per year to support the related infrastructure, equipment, travel and relocation costs. The fellowships will be administered as a new scheme under the Discovery element of the National Competitive Grants Program. This is a significant initiative that sends the clear message to our best and brightest that we value their talents. We are saying, ‘You are our national treasures, the brains trust of the nation.’

In recent weeks, we have been captivated by the work of a group of researchers in Switzerland. On 10 September this year, the group sent the first beam around the 27 kilometres of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator complex, the Large Hadron Collider. While the recent work of these researchers has received worldwide attention, what is instructive to point out is that getting to this point has involved over two decades of preparation. Indeed, the basis of the research comes from the original work done by Isaac Newton on gravity hundreds of years ago. I, like many others around the world, will continue to follow the progress of this research with fascination. Indeed, it holds out the great promise of unlocking some of the secrets of the universe.

Equally, when we come to the measures in this bill, the outstanding work conducted by our most talented researchers is the foundation stone upon which Australia is building a world-class, internationally competitive innovation economy and, of course, some of the attention-grabbing scientific breakthroughs that we all want to see. It is essential that we encourage, support and nurture generations of exceptional Australian and international researchers. The Australian government values the important contribution made by researchers to our community’s short- and long-term prosperity and is committed to fostering research talent at all levels.

The Future Fellowships scheme will act as an additional incentive to attract high-calibre researchers in all disciplines across the spectrum of pure, strategic and applied research. All in all, the government has committed to a suite of improvements to ARC funding which will enhance international collaboration opportunities for our research community. Alongside the Future Fellowships scheme will sit the recently announced Australian Laureate Fellowships scheme, which will allow the best research leaders in the world to qualify, while ensuring that most of that work is done in Australia. In addition, under the ARC linkage scheme, Australian postgraduate awards are available for the highest calibre postgraduate students, irrespective of nationality.

Other changes include removing restrictions on the use of ARC funds for travel for international collaboration and making sure that enhanced international collaboration is in fact a priority for all ARC schemes. Some of these changes put the ARC at the forefront of internationalism, in comparison with some of their overseas counterparts. In other instances, this new approach to publicly funded research in Australia will bring ARC schemes into line with the current best practice of agencies elsewhere.

This approach is about investing in the creation of new knowledge and supporting the application of that knowledge for the benefit of the community, a community in which smart economies can do well. It will certainly be welcome in my own electorate of Bennelong, an area with an emerging technology corridor which is increasingly linked to the very fine research efforts of Macquarie University.

We know that if we invest in knowledge it has spin-offs, not just for individual students, academics and institutions but also for the broader community as we build a knowledge based society to underpin both productivity growth and social inclusion. An important part of this is knowledge transfer and exchange between companies and universities, which is not just about commercialisation but also about the production of smart, reflective graduates with critical thinking and communication skills. Certainly, the emerging technology corridor that I speak of around North Ryde requires all of these skills as well as the technical capabilities to develop new products, new business models and markets. Interaction with local universities, as happens with Macquarie, is critical to that success.

I am confident that as we see the rollout of these initiatives and the other points that I have made—the future fellowships and the laureates—innovation centres across the country will benefit. The higher education sector is certainly going to be a major beneficiary. This, as other speakers on this side have pointed out, is in stark contrast to what we have seen in recent years. We should not forget that the Howard government presided over a four per cent decline in public funding of higher education between 1995 and 2004. This compared with an average increase of 49 per cent among other OECD countries. Even taking into account private funding, total funding per student dropped by one per cent, as against a nine per cent increase across the OECD. As a result, Australia lags in the most recent OECD composite measure of investment in knowledge.

These are the kinds of figures that are lamented by researchers and senior academics. The figures also help explain why, after strong productivity growth in the 1990s off the back of the reforms of the Hawke-Keating era, productivity growth in fact stalled completely after 2003. It is why the new Dean of Business at the University of Technology in Sydney, Professor Roy Green, has concluded that our good fortune in recent years has been due not to wise stewardship but, in fact, to being able to compensate for the productivity slowdown with the wealth effects of an entirely fortuitous commodity boom. What we need of course to reverse this mentality is, as I have said, an innovation economy, and that is embraced by the Rudd government. By investing more in our best and brightest, we will help achieve this goal and put in place the building blocks for a real transformation. As Professor Green further points out, we need to reconnect with the unfinished business of the Karpin review of 1995 and put a fresh focus on building innovative capability in Australia’s workplaces. All in all, it is now time to honour this effort and our researchers and provide them with the support they need.

One of the country’s outstanding scientific talents, the Nobel prize winner Professor Peter Doherty, has said on many occasions that Australia cannot afford to waste its best and brightest; that they require decent long-term prospects if they are to make the discoveries and forge the high technology companies that we need. The development of excellent researchers is perhaps the single most important objective of any innovation system, and the returns from investment have been quantified. A 2003 Allen Consulting report said that the returns on investment in ARC funded research were high in absolute terms and high relative to the average returns associated with all publicly funded research.

In conclusion I would again like to thank everyone who spoke on this bill. I appreciate the input of all. The bill will provide funding for the Future Fellowships Establishment budget measure. It will also apply indexation to existing appropriation amounts in the act and create an additional out-year financial forward estimate. The government intends to provide around $900 million over nine years for the Future Fellowships scheme. It is one of a number of initiatives that we have introduced to improve our research capacity. The funding will be through the ARC and will continue to provide significant and diverse benefits to the Australian community, which is why I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.

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