James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the second reading of the bill and not the amendment. Of course, this is a routine matter for us to deal with on an annual basis. We are, primarily, in this bill, adjusting the expenditure caps on research that are set out in the act. Of course, each financial year we add a new fourth year of the funding cap. We're also happily here increasing the existing ones in line with inflation. So this bill will see a little over $840 million added to what we're investing in research.

I'm very proud to be here, speaking in support of this, because research and the taxpayer funds and support that we provide to research are ever more important, now more than ever, in light of the lessons that we've learnt in responding economically to the challenges of the coronavirus and the very important needs of sovereign capability here in Australia: to be less reliant on offshore supply chains and to be more able and competent to produce more things here, particularly things that we rely on in a crisis. We saw during the coronavirus pandemic how important it was to have supply chains that were onshore here. If a situation like that ever befalls us again, we want to be even more robust than we were this time.

Research is so important in that because, of course, modern manufacturing and advanced modern industries require research for us to have a competitive advantage. This government has already announced, through the Modern Manufacturing Initiative in a previous budget, that we want to be investing in industry capacity in this country, particularly in the six areas that we identified through the Modern Manufacturing Initiative. I want to talk about one of those specific to my home state of South Australia in a moment. All six of them are about building resilience, and they need investment in research to be able to be industries and industry sectors that we can build on and grow into the future. By investing through things like the Research Council, we're going to see those excellent outcomes. It's research not just for research's sake but also for the added economic and industry benefit outcomes from that.

One of the six areas we've talked about is defence and, naturally, as a South Australian, I want to take the opportunity to reinforce how important it is for us to have a sovereign defence industry. The decisions of this Morrison government and previous coalition governments since 2013 have been vitally important for us to build our sovereign defence industry capability in this nation. Clearly, the naval shipbuilding decisions that have been made are the two biggest examples of that, but a whole range of capability acquisitions decisions that have been made in the last eight to nine years have been vital to give the defence industry in this country the confidence that it has a government that is going to invest in it and its capability.

But just as vitally important is research. When we talk about this bill and about investing in research as a government, it reminds us of recent examples like the one the Prime Minister announced at the Press Club last week and, of course, the Trailblazer program. They are examples of us as a government investing in research that partners us with tertiary institutions like universities, such as in the Trailblazers example. The announcement last week by the Prime Minister links universities and agencies like the CSIRO into the commercial sphere to find those great partnerships. Because although we do it in this country, I do believe we can do even better at ensuring that we get a commercialisation outcome from our spend in research and development. Whether that's taxpayer funds, whether it's private sector funds or whether it's the universities, we want to make sure that as we are spending money on research and development we are not just doing the R and the D but are getting the C part as well—commercialisation—and seeing an economic dividend from research when we are undertaking research that has an industry outcome.

So, in fairness, this is going to be more and more exciting for us, for our economy and particularly for my home state of South Australia because, as we are making decisions as a government to invest in defence industry, research and development, I'm very confident that that is going to lead to commercialisation outcomes for businesses that either exist or will be created because of the IP from research and, of course, jobs and economic benefits are going to flow from that.

I have a great business in my electorate called Supashock and it is an example of a business that is growing rapidly because it is undertaking research and development. They are bringing young graduates into the firm every year. They are enhancing their existing products. They are creating new products. They're servicing their existing customers and finding new customers. Just before Christmas, I was at a milestone announcement with the German company Rheinmetall, which partners with Supashock. In fact, they are a minority shareholder in that business. Rheinmetall are engaging with Supashock in contracts right across the world. In my electorate, through Rheinmetall, there will be components and parts made for major defence vehicle contracts across the globe. That is really exciting and it is because Supashock is investing in R&D. They always have a new or enhanced product, which means not only are they an excellent business that are making very good high-quality consistent products but there is always something new coming from them, something exciting that gives them an edge when they are seeking and bidding for various contracts. That all comes from research and understanding—in their case as a business—how vital it is to be investing in R&D and to be always looking for the next opportunity to enhance your product and to get an edge on your competitors. It's even more vital that we as a government are partnering with Australian businesses when they are competing internationally in export markets.

The more that the investment through the Research Council and the other investments that we make in research and development can lead to economic outcomes, the better. I mentioned the Trailblazer program that we announced last year as a government. This is very exciting. Just last week the acting education minister released the shortlist of the universities that are being considered to be one of four selected in the Trailblazer program to receive government funding partnered with the universities. Certainly I'm very supportive of Adelaide university's proposal under that process. It has been shortlisted and is in the final eight. As I say, four will be selected, so I hope it will be successful. It has a defence proposition to put forward which sees us investing as a government, but a far larger amount of money is being unlocked through the university and the industry partnerships brought together for that proposal, that bid into the Trailblazer program, which unlocks way more than the amount of money that we, as a government, will be spending. And it's not just about the dollars and cents when it comes to research; it's also about the capability and the quality of the research that's going to occur. In that case, again, some very eminent, significant defence companies are a part of that bid. I'm very excited for what they've put forward and very hopeful that they'll be successful.

As the member for Sturt, I've been involved in other propositions to government for research funding. Again, I was thrilled last year that the Heavy Industry Low-carbon Transition CRC, which was another Adelaide university led program, was successful. That has received Commonwealth funding. It's an example of partnering with tertiary institutions and, most importantly, the private sector. In that case, they are looking at some of the heavy industries, which of course are significant carbon emitters—industries like steel, aluminium et cetera—and how they can transition as we move towards a net zero carbon emissions future. In some cases there are technological breakthroughs that have not yet occurred and that must occur. With cement production, for example, if we're going to do large-scale production of cement in a zero-carbon way, then there are some industrial processes that are yet to be developed. I believe that these kinds of partnerships, which we as a government invest in with the private sector and with the tertiary education sector, are going to lead to outcomes in the sorts of breakthroughs that we need.

Again, I reiterate that these are examples of government being a co-investor in things that involve research to solve problems and that lead to economic outcomes. Most important is when we know that, although we're putting money in ourselves, we're actually leveraging an enormous amount of other money, from the private sector and from the universities. The United States is quite renowned for its tertiary education sector being excellent at converting research and development into commercialisation—into something that can become a business. I do think that we can do better than we already do in that regard. I'd love to see, in this country, that we are enhancing the link between the things that happen at our universities and how they lead to commercial outcomes. The Prime Minister's announcement last week, on the day that he addressed the National Press Club, was about exactly that—creating these linkages between research that's done at universities and commercial outcomes through businesses, whether it's an existing business or a business that is created off the back of IP that is developed through research at our institutions, so that the money we're investing gives us a return as well.

When research funding is focused on industries and breakthroughs for manufacturing, for example—and I've spoken about the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund initiative that we have put forward—we want to see those dollars lead to breakthroughs and lead to an economic return on that. Hopefully, ideally, whatever we're spending on research has a significant multiplier effect when it comes to the economic outcome when that research is successful.

Not all research is going to be successful and not all research is undertaken for economic benefit, obviously. As a government we're an enormous investor in health and medical research. The primary purpose of that, obviously, is to solve the problems and challenges in the health sector and the medical sector. Whether it's developing vaccines or developing new treatments for cancer and other things, that research investment is equally vital. But I'm certainly pleased to see that, as a government, we have an added focus, in the research funding that we invest, on seeing these economic manufacturing outcomes.

We have been a great manufacturing nation, particularly in the post-Second-World-War era. South Australia, and my home city of Adelaide, is one of the best examples of that. We had the GM-Holden factory, and we had very many other significant manufacturing businesses that were very successful for a long, long time. They were impacted by things like opening the economy up and reducing tariffs and by cheaper imports coming from other countries. Whilst I'm very passionately supportive of free trade, it is obviously regrettable that we have lost manufacturing jobs in this country in the more recent decades. But the opportunity for us now is to bring those manufacturing jobs back into our economy. We're going to do that by being competitive, by being more advanced and by having IP and technological breakthroughs by focusing on research and development and leading that through to commercialisation.

In closing: in my support of this bill, I reiterate the point that the way in which we're investing in research, through things like the Australian Research Council, means that, of the research dollars that we're investing, we're seeing—as a government—more and more being focused on the outcomes of that research. We can see an economic dividend coming from it. We want to see, as we're investing in manufacturing R&D, the commercialisation of that. We want to see a new era of manufacturing and a transformation of the industrial capability of our economy through the research dollars that we're investing. I commend the bill to the House.

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