Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science. Will the minister update the House on the economy-wide benefits of innovation?

Mr Albanese interjecting—

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

The member for Grayndler is testing my patience.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And how do innovative business practices help grow the economy and increase jobs, particularly in my electorate of Bass?

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

I am very pleased to get this question from the member for Bass, because he has in his electorate a great business that is breaking into new markets all around the world through the use of innovation. It is a business called Bellamy's Organic, and it was the first business in the world to offer organic baby formula, which has led to the product being sold not only all across Australia but also in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and New Zealand, and the business will soon be opening offices in Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong. It listed on the stock exchange in August 2014, and the market valued Bellamy's Organic at more than $120 million. So it went from zero to $120 million of value using innovation, creating new products and exporting them around the world.

It is a great example of the kind of firm that this government will be encouraging through our innovation agenda that we will be announcing later this year. It is the kind of business that is taking advantage of the government's approach to the economy. As an exporter, it will expand because of the great work of the Minister for Trade and Investment, through the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, through the free trade agreements with Korea and with Japan and of course through the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. As an innovator, it is taking advantage of the policies that the government has already implemented over the last two years and will implement at the end of this year and next year to encourage a huge turbocharge to part of the economy, in innovation. And, as a small and medium enterprise, of course, it is taking advantage of the very pro-small-and-medium-enterprise budget in 2015 that the member for Dunkley had so much to do with developing and then selling throughout the country.

On Friday, the government continued its consultations with people in the innovation sector. We had an innovation roundtable at Werrington, in the member for Lindsay's electorate, where some of the most significant people in the sector gathered with the Prime Minister, the assistant ministers and me to talk about the kinds of policies we could implement that would turbocharge the economy in the innovation sense. It was a very constructive meeting—and the Prime Minister and I were very pleased to take the train from Edgecliff to Werrington to make that occur.

On Saturday, the very energetic Assistant Minister for Innovation, the member for Longman, held a 'hackathon'—sometimes called a jamboree or gymkhana, depending on your age—and it was a very successful meeting, which brought together almost 300 people from across the sector to come up with new ideas. We are getting on with the job of changing the economy for the better to create the jobs and create the growth that will be the future of our country.