Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

I thank all members and senators who have spoken in relation to the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2021. The bill amends the Australian Research Council Act 2001 to ensure continuity of the funding scheme of the Australian Research Council, the ARC. This bill is a routine matter that updates the existing funding caps and inserts new funding caps through until 30 June 2025 to provide for anticipated inflationary growth and the cost of Australian research supported by the ARC. The new cap for the 2021-22 financial year has been increased to just over $815 million, and a new paragraph has been added to provide appropriations, as per agreed Commonwealth policy, to the 2024-25 financial year.

The government values the important role played by university research in the creation of new knowledge, new social and economic citizens and as a platform for our engagement with intellectual and practical challenges facing the world. Of course, as you will know, Deputy Speaker, in my portfolio area, innovation and technology is a driving force for good as we reduce our emissions as part of a global solution toward sustainability.

The ARC is an important funder of industry linked research at our universities—research with real-world impacts to accelerate Australia's innovation agenda. Schemes under the ARC's Linkage Program require industry partners to provide matching funding to leverage funding provided by the Australian government. These schemes encourage and extend cooperative approaches to research and improve the use of research outcomes by strengthening links within Australia's innovation system and with innovation systems internationally.

ARC funding has supported many tangible long-term industry collaborations. For instance, a team led by Professor Michael Breadmore at the University of Tasmania has worked for over 20 years on great innovation to develop the world's first mobile device that can rapidly detect the chemical signature of inorganic homemade explosives—an interesting and important part of research that twins with national security. A spin-off company, GreyScan Australia Pty Ltd has now been formed and is selling the device for use by first responders and checkpoint operatives in a variety of detection scenarios, including military, public security, cargo and mail screening, passenger screening, commercial premises and, of course, at major events.

The ARC's Industrial Transformation Research Program funds research hubs and training centres to support higher-degree research students and postdoctoral researchers in gaining real-world practical skills and experience through placement in industry. One of the challenges that's always existed is making sure that academics get practical and real-world experience, not just because of the benefits to them but also because of the knowledge transfer that occurs into industry.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, which I draw attention to in the context of primary research—many members might forget that it has an industrial capacity to take ideas and to develop them all the way through to commercialisation and scalability. These hubs and centres fund research in the priority areas: in advanced manufacturing; cybersecurity; defence; food and beverage; agribusiness; medical technologies and pharmaceuticals; mining equipment; resource technology and services; critical minerals processing, which is one of the most important sectors not just for Australia's research and industrial capacity but also for national security interests; oil, gas and energy resources; recycling and clean energy; and space.

These priority areas reflect the Australian government's commitment to developing critical industry sectors and to support collaboration between universities and industry. An example of these centres working in the advanced manufacturing and clean energy space is the ARC Training Centre for Future Energy Storage Technologies led by Professor Maria Forsyth at Deakin University. The researchers and their industry collaborators at this training centre are determined that the next breakthrough in battery technology will have a manufacturing home here in Australia, and thank the Maker for that. The centre is also training industry-led graduates who will become the next generation of renewable energy industry leaders in Australia—something we should all be excited about. There are already around 100 of these training centres and research hubs established in Australian universities, with funding of up to $5 million each provided by the ARC and with significant additional funding and support from industry partners.

These centres are breaking down the barriers between the ivory towers and real-world applications and charging Australian industry with the world-leading engineering and innovation talent of our universities. The Australian government's support for the ARC is enabling this transformation to occur in our innovation system. Successive Australian governments have made a sustained and significant investment in high-quality research within our university sector, which has contributed to its success and recognition internationally.

I thank members for their contributions and for supporting the government's continued commitment to the higher education and research sector. I do so because, on behalf of the whole House, this conversation is critically important when we look at the big challenges that not just our country faces but the global community. With the challenges and risk that are presented to the world on so many fronts, the solution is going to be the role of our scientists and innovators in technology, which is going to help and advance humanity. Particularly when you look in areas like the challenges affecting us resulting from climate change, it's going to be so important that we harness the power of technology and integrate it to the heart of our economy so that we can not just continue to innovate and prosper and grow but be part of the global solution not just to help ourselves but to help the world cut its greenhouse gas emissions footprint in the process.

It's going to be our research scientists and innovators who are going to take these ideas from their gestation through to their development, commercialisation and scalability, whether it's the potential of different forms of hydrogen and its role in industrial capacity and export as we move away from traditional fossil fuels to new and dynamic types of fuels or where it's ammonia. It's going to be the vehicles that we utilise in the same space through to what's necessary for freight, with potential for air and road transport too.

In every space of the economy and society we are going to face new challenges. The question for us is going to be how we respond to it. Universities can work in partnership with our research institutes as well as local communities. When I speak to various business leads and local mayors around the country about how they see their economic opportunity up to 2050, all of them talk about partnerships as part of the solution, and research is part of that conversation as well.

It's on that basis that the government remains utterly committed to the focus on higher education and research sectors as part of the building of Australia's future economy—something that it has done in past, we are rightly proud of and we wish to see continue into the future. It's on that basis I commend the bill to the House.

See this speech in context