Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science. Will the minister please advise the House on the opportunities and benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement for Australian science and research industries?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Petrie for his question. He knows that free trade in general and the Trans-Pacific Partnership in particular are very good news for Australian exporters, researchers, scientists, innovators, creating an environment for them in 12 countries—especially some of the new countries with whom we did not have bilateral free trade agreements—where they will be able to thrive, sell their products and services, grow their markets and protect their innovation. One of the important things about a researcher or a scientist is the capacity to protect their intellectual property. Their intellectual property, in many respects, is their currency, because it means their ideas cannot be stolen.

As part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations that the Minister for Trade and Investment settled, they agreed to have a common set of rules for intellectual property across the entire Trans-Pacific Partnership member countries. That means that there will be lower costs for business, because they will not have to comply with different intellectual property rules in each of those markets, and it means that they can protect their intellectual property and enforce penalties when someone is found to be in breach of intellectual property much more easily in all of those jurisdictions. This gives great comfort to individual researchers, to scientists, to innovative businesses—businesses like Textor Technologies in the member for Calwell's electorate. Textor Technologies teamed up with the CSIRO to produce a highly absorbent material that is used in 100 million square metres of fabric every year—it is used in nappies, in fact. It is produced by Kimberly-Clark in places like Sydney and the United States and Russia. It is an innovative technology created here in Australia in the member for Calwell's electorate, and she is not paying attention. That is probably how she treats her own electorate as well.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will stick to the answer.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A business like Textor Technologies will take full advantage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Businesses like Atomo Diagnostics—which the member for Grayndler has probably not heard of, but they exist in his electorate—produce a simple blood test that replaces costly and time-consuming blood testing procedures with one easy-to-use device. Atamo Diagnostics plan to expand that business into the United States. They will now be able to do so knowing that in the United States and all the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries, their intellectual property will be protected, giving them comfort, reducing their costs—savings that can be reinvested in the business or be taken as profits to then be reinvested in the business—creating jobs and creating growth in the economy. This is the future for Australia: to build on mining, to build on agriculture, to build on everything else, but also to use innovation to become a First World modern economy.