Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

This issue we're debating is not something that has just popped up out of the blue. The nation has been focused on this for years, for decades—countless reports, one after the other. In fact, this government has not had just one report done on commercialisation, under its minister Alan Tudge; it had another one done under the former industry minister. They've had two reports in the same government. This is like children playing together in parallel. They are doing the work and not talking and they're not able to find a way to get this issue sorted out.

The issue itself is big. Australia keeps lagging in, falling down, the Global Innovation Index. Why? We have tremendous talent in this country—the human capital side, fantastic; the translation side, terrible. This has been going on for years. Remember that thing they used to call NISA, the National Innovation and Science Agenda—or, as I like to call it, NISA one-point-only, because it never ever came back. It disappeared.

So this is a big issue. It needs dedicated thought. It needs effort. It needs an ability to coordinate portfolios to make it happen, it needs coordination in the broader community to make it happen and it needs an industry minister that is actually focused on it. Where's the industry minister? Even that side is asking where he is. Where's the industry minister in terms of focusing on this? He is not focused on this. This is not his day job. Industry is not his day job. His day job is a legal defence. That's what he's focused on. But he's not focused on the stuff that matters. Hello, Christian! Where are you, Christian? Because he's nowhere—

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