Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, what has been achieved in practical terms by the Food Processing Industry Strategy Group? Is the modelling of the Australian Food and Grocery Council right when it says that food and grocery prices should be expected to rise by between three and five per cent under the proposed carbon tax? Is Citigroup right when it says a carbon tax will impact on the profitability of supermarket retailers by between two and four per cent? If not, why are these figures refuted? Has the minister or anyone from the department met with the Australian Food and Grocery Council to consult on the impact on food and groceries of a carbon tax? Have either you or Minister Carr seen or asked for any Treasury modelling of the impact on food and groceries?

Regarding Commercialisation Australia: do you accept as correct the evidence given to us at estimates by officers of Commercialisation Australia that collectively 137 staff and case managers have been employed as part of the program during the two years of its life, yet if you add together the grants made in those two years you will see that there have been just 116 of them—in other words, this program effectively employs more staff than there are grants?

Regarding science education programs and the internationalisation of science: how much more money in this year's budget did the Primary Connections and Science by Doing science education programs, respectively, need in order to achieve their aims? How much was sought by the Academy of Science, and what advice was provided to the government about how much extra funding would be required in order to make the programs fully self-sustaining? Given the funding has been completely scrapped, is it the government's assessment that these programs were not effective? On what basis was the International Science Linkages program abolished in the budget? Has the department or the minister's office received representations from embassies and/or high commissions in Canberra in relation to the termination of the program? If so, can you be more specific about how many and what representations have been conveyed to the government or any department about the decision?

The budget papers further indicate that the department is going to be employing 96 more staff over the next year. Can you please provide details and explain where in the department and in what capacity those extra staff will be employed? What is the progress of the implementation of the Inspiring Australia program? What has been put in place in practical terms so far?

Regarding the R&D tax credit: when the Greens signalled their agreement to the government's R&D tax credit legislation, this week, they said it would address the alleged problem of a small number of companies taking a large share of the total funding. But wouldn't you agree that the rules are such that any company's eligibility for the concession makes absolutely no difference to anyone else's and that it is in fact an entitlement scheme, rather than a competitive scheme? Why has there been so little public consultation on the government's new laws, when will the opposition be able to see the new wording in the bill and why have the crucial feedstock provisions in the bill never been the subject of public consultation of any kind? Why hasn't Treasury modelling of the changes been released? Will you make a commitment to the House that this modelling will now be made available, more than two years after the government first announced its plans in relation to this legislation? Now that the government has said it is supportive of the idea of making quarterly cash payments to some of the recipients, can you clarify why?

If it is such a good change, why isn't it being introduced until 2014? And no matter when it is introduced, doesn't the whole nature of how these kinds of tax arrangements work mean that a structural change like that will inevitably create all sorts of logistical and administrative problems in its practical operation?

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