Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that the jobs of the future will require science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills;

(2) welcomes the Government's ongoing investment of $9.7 billion in science, research and innovation; and

(3) acknowledges that the Government is:

(a) delivering on its promised Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda; and

(b) putting science at the centre of industry.

There is an enormous opportunity in the modern world for those able to innovate and create, and it is essential that Australia is able to take advantage of these opportunities. To grow our economy and build the standard of living that Australians want to have, we will need to take full advantage and make use of our intellectual capital and our human potential, of which there is plenty in Australia. This government really understands the importance of innovation, and we are all excited by the challenges that the future holds. We know that innovation is central to this government's agenda for boosting economic growth and, as we know, it is the entrepreneurial culture that is critical in driving jobs and growth into the future. The Prime Minister said:

If we want to remain a prosperous, first world economy with a generous social welfare safety net, we must be more competitive, we must be more productive. Above all we must be more innovative. We have to work more agilely, more innovatively, we have to be more nimble in the way we seize the enormous opportunities that are presented to us.

The energetic Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, the member for Sturt, is certainly promoting innovation and excellence in science and research. He will be a catalyst in this space. We know that Australia is a preferred global partner for science collaboration, and trade agreements only strengthen this—the three new trade agreements as well. With 0.3 per cent of the world's population, Australia is ranked 10th globally for science publication and produces four per cent of the world's knowledge. Those are figures from 2013.

Over the last two years the government has steadily and systematically put in place a new framework, which we are now capitalising on—a new framework for Australian industry and science focused on building our areas of competitive strengths and supporting our industries as they transition to new opportunities and building industries of the future. We are committed to ensuring that Australian industry can make full use of the government's investment in research and science. The government's Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda has set out a new paradigm for industry policy, with an emphasis on science to foster innovation and research. It has involved working closely with industry, universities, the research sector, the science community and business to encourage increased collaboration and to place science at the centre of industry in order to take advantage of the transitioning global economy. Over the last two budgets we have announced targeted investments of more than $230 million in science, including securing the ongoing operation of vital scientific assets, like the RV Investigator,and promoting science in the committee. Across government there has been an investment of more than $9.7 billion this year alone on science, research and innovation. This is above the OECD average.

We have consulted widely, have developed ways to boost our national science, technology, engineering and mathematics capability and are determined to increase the number of students studying STEM subjects in schools and universities and taking STEM skills into the workforce. Computer science is a critical part of this. I encourage students to pursue their passion in life and in their career but also to take computer science, which will enable the creativity and of course the analytical processes that will be required in the future. This government is investing $12 million to improve the focus on these subjects in primary and secondary schools through the Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda. The Assistant Minister for Science, the Hon. Karen Andrews, and Australia's Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, recently consulted across Australia on the vision for a science nation responding to science, technology, engineering and mathematics—Australia's future. It is a vision to enhance Australian competitiveness by supporting high-quality STEM education and training, maximising research potential and strengthening our international engagement.

As Australia passes through its once-in-a-century mining boom into a more normal long-term production phase in the resources sector, we are becoming far more innovative in delivering economic returns. Obviously business is involved as well as the university sector, and national institutes like the CSIRO and Questacon are part of this agenda. Universities conduct a significant proportion of the research done in Australia. We need to more closely align Australian universities and the industry, business and entrepreneurial world. While 70 per cent of Britain's researchers are in universities and 70 per cent of Australia's researchers are in universities, four per cent of Australian researchers are involved in business but in Britain that number is as high as 40 per cent. To remedy this the Australian government is continuing to work with the industry and science sectors—the engine room of national productivity—to generate economic growth and create new jobs. We are doing this by building on the major reforms that have been implemented since the coalition government was elected two years ago.

These achievements include an investment of over $2.2 billion into industry programs over four years, helping to deliver new jobs; a $225 million Industry Growth Centres Initiative focused on lifting competitiveness and productivity in areas of competitive strength, including greater rates of collaboration between industry and science; and an Entrepreneurs' Program with over $100 billion invested annually across the country to provide advice, support, connections, collaborations and assistance with commercialisation. This is a significant investment over the forward estimates—practical, quality advice and support for entrepreneurs to innovate and grow. There is a $50 million Manufacturing Transition Program to help Australia transition to high-value, knowledge-intensive manufacturing; an Industry Skills Fund which provides $664 million over five years, providing more than 250,000 training places and support services across Australia; new country of origin food labels which will give consumers access to clear, consistent and easy-to-understand food labelling information; a tougher antidumping regime that levels the playing field for Australian industry, including a greater onus on overseas businesses to cooperate and better assistance for Australian businesses. There has been record funding of $3.1 billion for CSIRO over the next four years, increasing year-on-year; the appointment of a new chairman and new CEO for CSIRO as the nation's pre-eminent science agency works with the new industry growth centres; the refocussed CRC program and the Entrepreneurs' Program to ensure a comprehensive, accessible and effective industry network that delivers outcomes for businesses; a $100 billion exploration development incentive which is now supporting junior exploration companies to conduct greenfields mineral exploration; and an energy white paper which provides a coherent, long-term energy policy framework to underpin competition, productivity and investment in the energy sector that will deliver competitive energy.

The coalition government is working with industry and science to improve our competitiveness, innovate our production and increase our reach into global markets. I spoke earlier about the $9.7 billion to support science programs, initiatives and specialised science and research agencies. Science is at the centre of industry policy and science, research and development boots business productivity and is a major driver of our economy. We all know that scientific discovery is a critical underpinning part of innovation. The links between science and industry in Australia have to be strengthened even more so that more of the great research that I spoke about earlier in Australia can be turned into viable, profitable products. The government is investing more than $731 million over five years for CRCs, and that continues to advance a diverse range of research. The CRC program currently supports 35 industry-driven research partnerships between publicly funded researchers, businesses and the community to address major long-term challenges across all disciplines and industry sectors. The ongoing collaboration in this space is particularly important. I commend the government's intentions to the House.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion?

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak later.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As someone with two sisters who are scientists—Meg, my middle sister is a former AIDS researcher, now a winemaker and is Australia's first female master of wine and we are very proud of her and Amy, my little sister, is a world renowned neurologist and is a particular expert in stroke—I have a very strong interest in science, research and innovation. As a result of living with my sisters for so long, watching their careers flourish, watching their expertise grow—in AIDS in the case of Meg, in viticulture and in neurology in the case of Amy—I do have a very strong interest in science, research and innovation, particularly in women in science, research and innovation. As we know, there is parody now between women doing undergraduate degrees and even postgraduate degrees in the field of science yet, when they get to the postgraduate level and are moving their way through the ranks, they tend to run into a plug at that middle-ranking level and we see very few if any women in the senior ranks of science. So I do have a very strong interest in these matters after sitting around the dinner table with them over many years talking about their areas of research and interest.

My experience with my sisters as well as my experience with my community here in Canberra where we have world-class research science and innovation institutions has highlighted to me the importance of science, research and innovation to Australia's future prosperity. It is quite ironic that we are standing here today debating the importance of STEM. With all due respect to the member for Forrest, those opposite have done nothing but attack science since the day they were elected. The scale of this government's attacks on science is breathtaking. It is quite extraordinary. When I was listening to the member for Forrest and listening to her talking about those figures, I was wondering where she was actually getting them from given that there have been substantial cuts in funding to the national science and research institutions—I will come to that later.

Under the Abbott government, for a year Australia did not have a science minister looking after the interests of science, research and innovation, which sent a very strong message to the science community—it certainly was not lost in my community. Those opposite may talk a good game when it comes to the importance of science, research and innovation to Australia's productivity, to our prosperity in the future, to our growth but for some time there was no science minister, which just went to show how seriously they take STEM. The lack of a dedicated science minister was truly symbolic of the government's attitude towards STEM, science, research and innovation. After attending a number of events with the Chief Scientist, Ian Chubb, I got the impression that he was tearing his hair out about the fact that there was no science strategy for this country under the Abbott government. There was no science minister for some time and there was no strategic approach to science. The member for Forrest mentioned the strategic approach called Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics: Australia’s Future that was recently released and, reading about it, it is all good. It talks about the fact that science is infrastructure and is critical to our future.

Mr Chubb said we must align our scientific effort to the national interest with a focus on areas of particular importance or need and do it on a scale that will make a difference to Australia in a changing world. In this strategic approach, he has outlined his vision for developing better capacity and capability through strategic investment, through good planning and through long-term commitment. The paper focuses on building competitiveness, on supporting high-quality education and training, on maximising research potential and on strengthening international engagement. As he said, it gets back to the fact that he was tearing his hair out for so long under the Abbott government. We are the only OECD country without a science or technology strategy. Other countries have realised such a strategy is essential to remaining competitive in a world reliant on science and science trained people. The member for Forrest may have outlined through a number of points how this government is committed to science, research and innovation but, as Professor Chubb said, we are the only OECD country without a science or technology strategy and we are also, I imagine, one of the few if any countries around the world without a science minister for some time under the Abbott government.

I have highlighted the lack of a strategic approach on national science, research and innovation and also the fact that we did not have a science minister for some time but I also want to talk about the government's cuts to science research, cuts that had a significant impact on my community. This government, in its two budgets so far, has cut more than $3 billion from science, research and innovation. Canberra knows all about these cuts because this government cut $1.2 billion from science and research agencies in its first budget including almost $115 million from the CSIRO here in Canberra. These cuts saw nearly 1,300 jobs lost from CSIRO, the world famous, world renowned national science, research and innovation institution. The government maintains it is a big supporter of and advocate for science, research and innovation yet it has cut billions of dollars' worth of funds—a lot here in my electorate—and cut 1,300 jobs from CSIRO, which was the largest number of job losses in the organisation's history. And as we know, this organisation has been going for some time—for decades—going right back until the twenties, from memory. We also saw jobs lost from Geoscience Australia, from ANSTO and from the Bureau of Meteorology—all agencies that are really very lean and mean, so any job cut has a significant impact on them.

I know in the case of Geoscience that the job losses had an impact on the tsunami warning team. What a really bright idea—cutting jobs from science, research and innovation that not only have a significant impact on our nation's productivity, prosperity and growth but which also have a significant impact on the safety of the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in the intelligence they provide on the tsunami warning system.

And the cuts did not stop there. Cuts were also made to the Australian Research Council and the Defence Science and Technology Organisation. The Cooperative Research Centre also had its funding slashed and NICTA had its funding cancelled altogether.

Under this government, we have also seen the abolition of the Innovation Investment Fund, the abolition of Enterprise Connect, the abolition of Industry Innovation Precincts, the abolition of Enterprise Solutions and the abolition of Researchers in Business. So, here we are: the member for Forrest, as I said—with all due respect to the member for Forrest—has put up this motion about how this government is a friend of science, research and innovation, and how it has made significant investment in science, research and innovation. But what have we seen? We have seen 1,300 jobs cut from CSIRO. We have seen $3 billion cut from science, research and innovation institutions and a range of other funds. We have seen $115 million cut from the CSIRO here in Canberra. We have seen NICTA funding cancelled. And we have seen the Innovation Investment Fund, Enterprise Connect, the Industry Innovation Precincts, Enterprise Solutions and Researchers in Business all abolished. So I just wonder how committed this government is to science, research and innovation when all it has done since it has been in government is to slash and burn in every way in this sector, not just in terms of funding and grants to the institutions but, most importantly, into the jobs and skills which will build our productivity and build prosperity for the future and which will enhance Australia's growth, both here and overseas. (Time expired)

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The march of civilisation is inextricably linked with the development of technology and its widespread adoption. Perhaps the height of man's productivity prior to the industrial revolution was the peak of the Roman Empire, but that of course is for the scholars to debate. However, it was the industrial revolution that changed forever the direct ties between man and the land. Successive waves of technological uptake have forever changed the ratios of those producing food, fibre, shelter and goods to those who consume those products. That is the dividend of technology. It is this efficiency that frees up the human mind and endeavour to provide the luxuries of life, and by 'luxuries of life' I mean anything that is not essential to sustain life. In terms of human development, it is technology that is the currency that underwrites our unparalleled standard of living.

Individual nations and communities have some choices. They can choose to resist change and try to protect and extend technologies and jobs that have been left behind by efficiencies, either in our local economies or abroad. They can sit back, let change wash over them and adjust to those changes as they happen. Or they can choose to be at the cutting edge of change, make the tough decisions to encourage investment and risk taking and accept the temporary downsides and risks as a part of the path to success. Whichever path a nation chooses, one thing is sure: change is both inexorable and inevitable.

The Australian government, under Malcolm Turnbull, has clearly signalled, with the appointment of Christopher Pyne as the Minister for Innovation and Science, that Australia is in the last group, seeking to be on the cutting edge. So while jobs in traditional areas are shrinking and this causes local anxiety, at the same time our nation has never supported more jobs

I had the privilege recently to lead a bilateral delegation to the US, where the benefits of a dynamic and well-funded research sector are clearly demonstrated. From their highly-sophisticated defence research and development platforms through to government owned, but privately operated, research establishments—like the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the buzz that is Silicon Valley—the US is bursting with ideas and enthusiasm. It is this path that the current government have chosen as the best for Australia.

Often we hear criticisms that Australia is underinvesting in scientific research when in fact we are committing $9.7 billion of taxpayer dollars per year to research. That comes on the top of a very significant history of delivering great scientific breakthroughs throughout the world.

The bigger question for Australia is: why we have been able to generate the breakthroughs, but so often have been unable to develop the product? Why indeed is it so difficult to raise sufficient capital in Australia to turn those ideas into finished product? After all, Australia was responsible for most of the major science behind photovoltaic cells, wi-fi, spray-on skin and black box flight recorders. We are 13th in the world for the number of patents registered each year which, considering our population, actually puts us at or near the top of the tree.

Historically we have been responsible for some of the biggest innovations the world has ever seen in agriculture: the Ridley strippers, followed by Sunshine harvesters revolutionised grain harvesting worldwide and yet, tellingly, there is no longer a harvester made in Australia—they are all imported.

During the wide-ranging meetings arranged for our US delegation, it became apparent that there is a far higher appetite for risk in the US than here, and that there is a far greater acceptance of the chance of failure. It is part of the conversation Australia must have as to why this is the case.

It is a fact that in Australia our biggest pools of moveable and flexible capital lie within the superannuation sector. And whilst overseas funds look to Australia to invest in a wide range of industry it seems that our funds are move conservative. Is it caused by a difference in the Australian character or is it caused by the rules and regulations within our superannuation sector? While I am unlikely ever to support compulsory investment targets for superannuation funds, we certainly must consider the incentives and disincentives for investment in our development sector.

I am especially pleased to report that the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Industry, which I chair, has just commenced an inquiry into technological opportunities and barriers to adoption in our agricultural industries. Already we have received more than 80 submissions and, while I have plenty of reading to do yet, there is no doubt that we are bristling with ideas and enthusiasm, a new enthusiasm that is feeding off the excitement of the government's progress on freeing up the trade barriers which have for many years denied our agricultural access to some of the best and fastest growing markets in the world. Certainly the enthusiasm and the innovative heart that I witnessed in Germany, the US and other places is due to be reflected here in Australia. I support the government's drive on that path.

Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to say that a wry smile crept across my face when this PMB came across my desk: a coalition motion trumpeting the importance of STEM, research and development and innovation to ensuring the jobs of the future in Australia. It is pleasing at least that irony is not dead. A government that have spent two years systematically gutting our nation's STEM research infrastructure are now positioning themselves as the champions of the future; a government that kicked the science minister out of cabinet when they was elected; a government that cut $115 million from the budget of the CSIRO; a government that took the knife to research and development to the tune of $878 million; a government that proposed $5 billion of funding cuts to universities; a government that presided over an education review that proposed removing digital literacy from our nation's schools' curriculum; a government that have voted not once, not twice but three times to remove the R&D tax incentives that keep Australia a competitive and desirable place for large companies to undertake research and development; a government that took all of these actions ahead of their innovation review and tax white paper, as though STEM and R&D funding were somehow peripheral to these policy agendas; a government that listened to Labor's comprehensive package of policies announced in the 2015 budget reply, STEM policies designed to secure the jobs of the future, and did nothing; indeed, a government that literally laughed at our proposal to teach computational thinking, a crucial STEM literacy for the jobs of the future, in our primary schools. Yet they now come into this chamber with a PMB to acknowledge that the government are delivering on STEM.

The sad reality is that Australia is not currently delivering on STEM. We are not equipping our kids with the skills that they will need to compete for the jobs of the future with the kids growing up in our peer countries in the Indo-Pacific. We are not producing the specialist graduates with the skills necessary to make Australia a hub for STEM research and development and innovation. As Australia's Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, has said:

As the economy becomes increasingly dependent on technology, our national competitiveness will be underwritten by our real-world capability in mathematics and science.

Unfortunately, this real-world capability is going backwards. While our peers in the Indo-Pacific apply an ever-greater focus on building their STEM capabilities through schools and universities, we are stalling. Fewer than one in 10 Australian high school students now complete the advanced maths courses necessary for the increasingly fundamental workplace skills, like data analysis or data modelling. The percentage of Australian university students studying math degrees in Australia is only 0.5 per cent, roughly half the OECD average. In Victoria, the number of VCE students studying an ICT subject is at a 20-year low. Survey research undertaken by Microsoft suggests that around only a third of Australian students even have the opportunity of learning code in school. Unsurprisingly, this decline is flowing through to our universities in this area too. The number of Australians enrolling in tertiary ICT courses fell by 52 per cent in the 10 years between 2003 and 2013, from 8.1 per cent of all students to 3.9 per cent. We are simply not producing a workforce with the STEM skills needed to compete in the global economy for the jobs of the future. Labor recognise this and we are acting.

During the 2015 budget reply speech, the Leader of the Opposition unveiled Labor's plan for the jobs of the future. Under a Shorten Labor government, we will ensure computational thinking is taught in primary and secondary schools across the country. We will establish a national coding in schools centre, where business and industry can connect with teachers, giving our children insight into the real-world application of the skills that they are learning. We will establish a STEM teacher training fund to support 25,000 primary and secondary school teachers to undertake professional development in STEM disciplines, tackling the chronic shortage of STEM-literate teachers in our education system. We will offer 100,000 STEM award degrees which will provide a financial incentive for students to enrol in and complete a STEM undergraduate degree, in recognition of the significant benefit of growing Australia's STEM capacity. There will be 100,000 STEM graduates instead of $100,000 degrees.

We will reverse the cuts the Liberals have made to university fees. We will establish a $500 million smart investment fund that will partner with VCs and licensed fund managers to co-invest in early-stage companies, providing a Commonwealth investment of up to 50 per cent of the start-up capital needed to help Australian companies commercialise innovations. We will work with industry on StartUp Finance, a partial guarantee scheme to improve access to finance to microbusinesses. We will offer 2,000 graduates a 'Start Up year', fuelling their entrepreneurial spirit by providing income-contingent loans to up to 2,000 students to support their participation in university accelerators or similar incubators run by successful entrepreneurs. This would be a government delivering on an innovation agenda. This would be a government putting science at the centre of industry. But it will take more than a new prime minister to realise it; it will take a new government altogether. At the next federal election, whether it will be in the coming months or whether it will be late next year, the Australian Labor Party will offer that choice to the Australian public.

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To think scientifically and to think mathematically opens us up to solving some of the world's greatest problems. Having more and more people who are able to think that way is crucially important for the future of this country and, indeed, for the future of the globe. I was lucky enough to have great science and maths teachers through my schooling. I learnt to think mathematically and scientifically. My undergraduate and postgraduate degrees were in economics and econometrics, and applied maths was absolutely essential to that work and to my thesis. During that time, it was absolutely imprinted on my mind that precise scientific and mathematical thinking, forming hypotheses and theories and testing those hypotheses, is a wonderful thing and, frankly, the world does not have enough of it, and I worry deeply that our kids are not getting enough of it. There is no doubt that we are behind where we should be in science and maths. We are falling down in the international rankings. To correct the previous speaker, I note that much of that falling down in the rankings occurred under the last Labor government. But, wherever it came from, we are falling down in the rankings and, whilst we can question how they are tested, there is no doubt that other countries are getting ahead.

I was privileged recently to launch in Canberra, on behalf of the Minister for Education and Training, Simon Birmingham, the National Intensive Program. This was an intensive workshop and training week held in the school holidays to mentor science and maths teachers from across Australia. It is part of the National Mentoring for Science and Maths Teachers project, led by the University of Canberra. By complete coincide one of the project coordinators at UC is the sister of the man who was my greatest mentor when I worked in the private sector. In July 2014, this mentoring project was awarded $1.4 million under the Australian Maths and Science Partnerships Program, which aims to improve student outcomes in maths and science by collaboration between schools and universities.

Making science and maths more accessible and meaningful to students is an absolute national imperative. Our productivity and international competitiveness rests upon our ability to innovate, through the fields of science and maths. A focus on STEM education has never been more important.

There has been a significant decline in students studying STEM at Year 12 and tertiary levels. That has been occurring for quite some time. Australian school students' performance in STEM subjects, measured by the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment, is declining. Australia's Chief Scientist has noted that participation in STEM subjects in Australian schools is at its lowest level in 20 years. When it is also estimated that 75 per cent of jobs in the fastest-growing industries require skilled workers in STEM subjects, this could be a lost opportunity for our young people and for our nation. If these trends continue, Australia's capacity to develop a high-technology, high-productivity economy will be severely limited.

The government, working together with the states and territories, is developing a long-term national strategy for STEM in schools, including programs to support our teachers and students across schools. The National Mentoring for Science and Maths Teachers project, which I just talked about, is one of 22 projects funded by the federal government under the Australian Maths and Science Partnerships Program.

Teachers at the intensive program came to Canberra from as far away as WA and the Kimberley and from as close as Mulwaree High School, at Goulburn, my hometown. They had the chance to be mentored in maths and science teaching and to learn through specially designed workshops. Judging by the level of energy and interest from participants, I know they will have taken every opportunity to expand their teaching repertoire. By building teacher confidence and enjoyment in maths and science, teachers in turn can inspire a passion for STEM subjects in their students.

I have four kids. They have been educated at a range of schools, and I, too, have been privileged to have a very good education. I cannot tell you how significant an impact great teachers have had for my kids and in my life. It is gold to have an inspiring teacher who is also able to mentor you in an area of particular interest.

STEM is a national agenda. In my own electorate I am looking forward to introducing new STEM awards for selected schools, and I hope to be able to kick-start those awards at the end of this school year. This government is committed to STEM and we will deliver.

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To state the bleeding obvious, I think everyone in this House is in agreement about the importance of STEM, of the importance of encouraging students to study science, technology, engineering and maths, the importance of innovation support, support for research, support for commercialisation and support for technology. Unfortunately, the actions of the government do not match their rhetoric. This motion mentions a dollar funding figure, which is fine. It is an absolutely fine funding figure. What it neglects to mention is the $2 billion in cuts this government, since coming to power, has inflicted on support for innovation in this country. These cuts have been most egregious. In fact, they have targeted areas where we need more support and not less support.

What is the fundamental problem in this country around innovation? It is that we do great at blue-sky research, we are great at doing deep research—our universities and CSIRO are world leaders in some of these areas—but we get poor bang for buck for our applied research investment. Some people, such as Professor Goran Roos, have tried to develop figures about our dollar pay-back for applied research and investment by the public sector, and it is quite low.

That is the area where we need to target investment and culture change, and where we need to turn universities away from focusing on themselves and instead support industry. Also, we need to turn industries towards universities and ask, 'How can we work together to commercialise great research ideas?' Unfortunately, the current government has withdrawn a massive amount of funding that was designed to do this work. The two best examples of this were two initiatives out of the 'Aussie jobs' package that the last government announced at the end of 2012, or early in 2013. Part of this was a $500 million precincts initiation—a precincts initiative that was driven by industry demand for such a program. It was a program that put together a pool of funding that was available for industry and academia to collaborate on to drive a cultural change where the two sides worked together to commercialise ideas and grow the jobs of the future. It was to develop the companies that would be our mass employers going forward. What happens when this mob get into government? They cut it. It is no longer a $500 million program—it is a $188 million program rebranded as the growth centres initiative. I am pleased they kept some of the money, but that very significant $312 million cut will limit the ability of the growth centres to do what they are designed to do.

Secondly, they have cut the $300 million venture capital fund that we put aside, through the tried and tested IIF model, where the government is a co-investor with the private sector, where money is made by the government and that money can be pumped back into venture capital. Ultimately, we will not get commercialisation in this country if we do not get investment in venture capital, and we have quite a shallow venture capital industry in this country.

We have seen cuts to Commercialisation Australia. We have seen them destroy the Enterprise Connect program, which was doing great work out there in the private sector. I have manufacturers coming up to me regularly bewailing the abolition of Enterprise Connect. They are pouring scorn on the poorly designed and poorly funded replacement program the coalition has put in place.

I am pleased that everyone in this place is supportive of STEM education. I am pleased that everyone in this place supports innovation in this nation. But we need to match rhetoric with action. So far, this government is sorely lacking. The new Prime Minister talks a good game. He talks about a positive vision for the economy. He talks about innovation. We have an assistant minister for productivity at the despatch table. He has a couple of other amigos talking about innovation. That is great, but they need dollars. They need well-designed programs and they need dollars to match this action, and so far we have not seen anything but bluster and rhetoric. The coalition side have form on this. One of the first actions John Howard took when he took power in 1996 was to cut the R&D tax concession in half. So I welcome this rhetoric, but they need to match it with action.

On my side, I am proud that the Labor Party—in the budget reply speech of our Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten—made great announcements around coding in schools, finance for start-ups and a half a billion dollar venture capital fund. That would be a great start to building innovation in this country and I welcome it. I applaud the Labor Party's commitment. I hope for more to be announced before the next election, because, so far, we cannot rely on the current government to do anything about this massive problem.

Matt Williams (Hindmarsh, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start by examining what the CSIRO are doing because I think it is quite informative as to the new direction that their chief executive, a former Silicon Valley venture capitalist, Larry Marshall, is taking them in. He talked recently about the original spin-off on wi-fi. We have heard from other members in the chamber about the great innovations in Australian industry and coming out of the CSIRO and other organisations. Regarding wi-fi, Mr Marshall said that, if the CSIRO had invested in the technology, the return would have been greater and achieved faster. He said the original spin-off, Radiata, turned a $6 million investment into several hundreds of millions of dollars over four years. That was a great return in many respects—you would not deny that—but he also compared that with a US wi-fi company called Atheros, which had a $1.8 billion market value, ran for over a decade, made hundreds of millions of dollars and employed thousands of people.

This is what the member for Charlton quite correctly talked about—getting better bang for the buck and getting better return on an investment—and this is where the challenge lies. It is not in how much money; it is in our return and doing the best we can with the finite taxpayer's dollar. The member for Charlton also mentioned culture change, and that is something that the new CEO of CSIRO has alluded to—a change in approach, a change in mindset and a better outcome for not just that organisation but Australian inventors and the Australian commercialisation sector as a whole.

I want to move to where the government is currently at with some of its innovation policies. This is a very important motion, and I congratulate the member for Forrest on bringing it forward. In my home state of South Australia, we have organisations like the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, SAMHRI, the biotechnology precinct and the Australian School of Petroleum, which is a close collaboration between the University of Adelaide and one of our largest companies, Santos. We have hundreds of millions of dollars going into these organisations, which is very important and needs to continue. In addition to that, there have been some new areas of policy debate. I applaud Universities Australia on their Keep it clever: policy statement 2016, which was recently released. It is designed to generate a national conversation about the role of university education and research and collaboration with industry in particular. At first glance, it has some worthwhile initiatives to consider that build upon the existing programs to achieve greater industry and university engagement and collaboration. I want to touch on a few because I believe they have merit: to invest in a major technology and innovation program, to establish an innovation board, to create a student innovation fund and to introduce a premium tax concession rate for business collaboration with universities on R&D. We are doing some of these things already, whether through government policy initiatives or existing policy. The Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda is also important in this context with the way that it encourages industry and researchers to collaborate, creates a lower cost, business-friendly environment, and improves work skills and infrastructure investment. It is a sizeable program. There is over $200 million across those areas where we have a competitive advantage: advanced manufacturing, food and agribusiness, medical technologies and pharmaceuticals, mining equipment, technology and services, and oil and gas and energy resources.

On these areas, I want to talk briefly about the cooperative research centres because they often go unnoticed in our discussion about this. There are 34 active CRCs. I have visited one in my electorate, Deep Exploration Technologies, and seen the important work it does. It was established to address the most significant challenge to the future of the minerals industry in Australia: the reduction in inventory and achieving more mineral exploration success. It has collaborations with Boart Longyear, a company located near the CRC, BHP Billiton, CSIRO and University of Adelaide.

So there are some good things happening already. Yes, we have to work on changing the approach. I want to return to Larry Marshall's contribution here. He said:

So, when I look at Australia's innovation dilemma and I look at us measuring everything by science excellence and citations and publications, I think that is the wrong measure.

He thinks that there needs to be a different measure that 'measures impact or collaboration'. I agree. We need a different approach and a different mindset where we aim to get a better return on investment. We have the right organisations and the right infrastructure. This is why the Prime Minister, Christopher Pyne and the Assistant Minister for Science, Karen Andrews, are all working along these lines—to make sure we optimise our investment.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today, I want to contest the claim that the government is delivering on its promised Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda. I note in passing that the member moving this motion, whom I have a high regard for in a general sense, did, however, preside over the demise of a very innovative biotech industry in her own electorate—a business that was hounded out of this country by a witch-hunt orchestrated by a multinational company.

But that is not going to be my focus today. My focus will be on the very real prospect that, in Australia, we can in fact have an automotive industry. There is a very real possibility for not only an Australian but, indeed, a Western Australian car-manufacturing industry. What we need to do is move away entirely from the existing way in which we are delivering motor vehicles and take on board an entirely new, 21st century approach to manufacturing. That approach is one that focuses not on mass production—large production runs of a standardised product—but one that has a much more individuated production technique that allows for a greater degree of individuation and much smaller production runs. That, as we know, is the way in which manufacturing has to move.

Simmons Global is Western Australian engineering outfit that has for the past 15 years been providing a great deal of engineering innovation to some of WA's largest civil and mining projects. This is a group of people who are out there doing innovation that has been solving many problems with big projects in Western Australia. Dave Simmons proposes that if we took a different approach to vehicle manufacturing, if we used the space frame construction techniques that are used in aeronautical engineering and in a number of construction processes, then we could manufacture vehicles on a much smaller scale and manufacture vehicles such as those that are especially designed for use in mining outfits or used in municipal settings, for emergency services, such as police vehicles, and that we could actually construct. We would not have to be constructing the sorts of volumes we have seen using traditional manufacturing techniques.

Dave has made a submission to the Senate Economics References Committee inquiry that is looking at the future of the automotive industry. He has set out the case for changing the rules that regulate the automotive transformation scheme to allow new manufacturers of motor vehicles to come in and apply for financial assistance. We know we are not going to have a manufacturing industry in this country if it is a case of just getting out of the way. We need active engagement in R&D. We have to get involved there, providing these opportunities. Dave is very clear that he wants to have a partnership with government, bringing on board private sector equity to combine with resourcing under the Automotive Transformation Scheme to get this idea off the ground. This is going to provide an opportunity for all of those parts manufacturers who are facing a very bleak future to be incorporated into a new model of automotive manufacturing.

I strongly urge the government to review its position and to not rule out, as they have, out of hand, an engagement in a new automotive industry. We can do this. In my electorate I see the magnificent success of companies like Hofman Engineering that are able to export around the world. We can do this. Here we have a smart 21st century company. Let's support it.

Debate adjourned.