Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Republic) Share this | Hansard source

I'm speaking in support of the amendment moved by the member for Chifley. This bill seeks to amend the Industry Research and Development Act to rename the independent statutory board known as Innovation and Science Australia to Industry Innovation and Science Australia. There are also some consequential amendments to other Commonwealth legislation because of that name change. But that's about it. The fact is that this amendment bill does nothing to advance the interests of industry, increase innovation, encourage greater investment in research and development expenditure by Australian companies or prioritise scientific research. The bill is very light on policy because this government is very light on encouraging industry research and development, particularly at a company level. The Morrison government thinks that it can disguise its failures to industry and investment around innovation and science with another marketing campaign, like the trivial name change.

Australia is home to some of the best universities in the worlds. Overall, we're ranking sixth throughout the world for the quality of our universities. I'm proud that I have a university in the electorate that I represent, UNSW, which has the world-leading centre for the development of solar power and other renewable energies. The Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics at UNSW is the largest and best known internationally renowned university based photovoltaic research group in the world. I want to give a special mention to all of the staff and researchers working at UNSW's Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics—in particular, Professor Martin Green, who leads the centre and has been referred to as the 'father of photovoltaics'.

Professor Green is credited with leading a UNSW research team over decades that has achieved enormous reductions in the cost of photovoltaic solar systems and, importantly, a huge reduction in the amount of emissions that would have otherwise been spewed into the atmosphere worldwide. Among his many breakthroughs, he invented the PERC solar cell, which accounts for at least a quarter of the world's solar cell manufacturing capacity and has a rapidly increasing market share due to its greater efficiency over other types of cell. The PERC cells pioneered by UNSW now reflect 50 per cent of world production. That is an amazing statistic.

The fact is that 50 per cent of the world's solar cells that are produced today is technology that was invented by Australians, invented in our university system by Australians, and is now being commercialised all over the world. In fact, there's not a company throughout the world that is manufacturing solar cells that is not using the technology that was pioneered at the University of New South Wales. You often see these companies listing on the Nasdaq in New York. When they have that ceremony the first time a company that is selling on the Nasdaq, is trading on the Nasdaq, there's the ringing of the bell and there's the obligatory photo. In all of those photos, there's someone from UNSW in them, because the technology that is developed at UNSW is in every single solar cell production facility throughout the world.

The PERC solar cells are now becoming a commercial standard throughout the world, with sales exceeding $10 billion in 2017 and predicted to exceed US$1 trillion by 2040. God, that is something that we should be enormously proud of—$1 trillion worth of sales around solar cells, in technology produced here in Australia in our university sector. That pioneering work has seen Professor Green become the first Australian to win the prestigious Global Energy Prize for his research, development and educational activities in the field, beating the likes of Elon Musk to take out the award.

As part of its broader culture of innovation and research excellence at UNSW there is, of course, Sunswift, which is the solar racing team. It was established 25 years ago and is now Australia's top solar car team. Over that time, the Sunswift team has combined innovative research with practical engineering skills to create clean energy transport solutions that have seen UNSW set the Guinness world record for the lowest energy consumption achieved while driving across Australia in an electric car. Since its formation, Sunswift has produced six solar cars and established a world-class reputation for fast tracking careers in industry, research and development. It's innovation and research at its best, in a world where sustainable transport technology is playing an ever-increasing role in shaping our society and our future.

Despite these significant achievements at UNSW and other leading universities, according to the Global Innovation Index, Australia is ranked 23rd among the group of 49 high-income economies. And isn't it a shame, given this technology that we're producing here in Australia, that there's not more government support—that our government isn't prouder of these achievements and is not boasting about these achievements or supporting them with grants, with innovation, with taxation subsidies to particularly promote the development of an electric car industry here in Australia?

We know the technology is innovated here, but to produce it we have to go overseas. This opportunity for jobs and investment in Australia is wasted because, up until a few months ago, this government's approach to electric vehicles in Australia was that they were bad and that they were something that we should try and avoid in the future.

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