Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would very much like to thank the minister as she leaves the chamber for voting for my second reading amendment. It is rare that one moves second reading amendment in this place that is supported by the government. But to have the House carry the second reading amendment was indeed a pleasing day for the opposition. In this instance I shall not be moving a second reading amendment, tempted as I am to see how many second reading amendments can get past the folks opposite.

Labor supports this bill because it mirrors our commitment to establish Innovate Australia, an independent agency to guide the government's approach to innovation policy. It is a shame that the government has not adopted the comprehensive approach Labor took to innovation policy in government and has continued from opposition.

What this government is presenting as innovation policy is really just what you would get if you had googled '10 ideas to improve innovation in Australia'. It is a piecemeal approach, which is poorly thought through and shows little understanding of the realities of the role played by innovation across the economy—in established businesses, on shop floors as much as within start-ups and new tech firms.

The Industry Research and Development Amendment (Innovation and Science Australia) Bill 2016 amends the Industry Research and Development Act in two ways: it transitions the current Innovation Australia board to a new independent body called Innovation and Science Australia; and it inserts a statutory framework to provide legislative authority for Commonwealth spending activities in relation to industry innovation in science and research programs.

Labor supports this bill because it emulates Labor's commitment to establish Innovate Australia, an independent agency to guide government approach to innovation policy. We announced our policy before the election and we are very pleased that the Turnbull government has adopted it. Since Mr Turnbull became Prime Minister in September last year, the word 'innovation' has become de rigeur. After being banned under former Prime Minister Abbott, it is suddenly ubiquitous even in places where does not particularly fit.

Labor's approach not simply one of using buzzwords and catchphrases where it happens to suit the prime minister of the day. We set in place a 10-year innovation agenda in government, known as Powering Ideas. The Abbott-Hockey government in 2014 ripped more than $3 billion out of science, research and innovation programs and the much-hyped Science Agenda of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and then Industry minister Christopher Pyne restored less than one third of that funding.

The goals of Labor's innovation policy are tied up in our commitment to Labor values and in our understanding of the importance of innovation to social progress. The challenge of an effective innovation agenda is to reshape and focus the economy to create high skilled high-wage jobs of the future. That is why Labor, at the last election, announced investment of more than $1 billion in a suite of measures in science and research on top of our commitments in schools, TAFE and universities.

The need to foster a culture of innovation is why we cannot focus narrowly on start-ups. It is why at the last election we were committed to supporting 100,000 young people, especially women, studying STEM, by giving them a HECS discount on completion. It is why we were committed to a national digital workforce plan to expand the stock of ICT workers by 2020. It is why we were committed to a start-up year at universities so universities could develop their ideas, get business know-how and connect with finance. It is why we were committed to boosting the skills of 25,000 current primary and high school teachers to teach STEM. It is why we went to the Australian people encouraging the notion of getting start-ups to help solve government problems through challenge platforms and supporting start-ups to compete in government tenders. It is why at the last election we were committed to giving every child the opportunity to learn coding or computational skills at primary and secondary school, and to working with industry to establish a $9 million national coding in schools centre to develop the resources and expertise required.

There are particular problems that can be solved by somebody who codes. In my work at the Australian National University, I would use mostly Stata but sometimes SPSS or SAS in order to solve statistical problems. But the process of learning to code can also be important. Many gen Xers will remember their experience learning to code in BASIC—a language that has now largely gone the way of the dinosaurs but which provides the building blocks for rigorous thinking, for understanding randomness and the role that loops play, and for understanding the importance of step-by-step instructions and debugging. All of these are important skills for a range of careers in mathematics, science and engineering. So Labor's encouragement of coding was recognising that coding skills at the school level can provide a bedrock for science careers later on. It was in the same way that the Australia in the Asian century white paper proposed to allow every young Australian in secondary school to study a priority Asian language. Of course, you need the National Broadband Network for that. It is useful to have the National Broadband Network with fibre to the premises in delivering these initiatives as well.

By contrast, the record of the Abbott-Turnbull government has been cuts, cuts and more cuts. Since the 2013 election, the Abbott-Turnbull government's budgets have: abolished the Innovation Investment Fund, abolished Commercialisation Australia, defunded National ICT Australia, cut the CSIRO, cut the Australian Research Council, cut the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, cut from Cooperative Research Centres, cut from the Research Training Scheme, cut from Geoscience Australia, cut from the Bureau of Meteorology, cut from Defence Science and Technology Organisation, cut from Sustainable Research Excellence, cut from the R&D tax incentive, abolished the Enterprise Solutions Program, abolished Industry Innovation Precincts, cut the Australian Industry Participation plans, cut from the TCF co-investment programs, abolishing Enterprise Connect, and attempts to abolish ARENA and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. This cutting agenda is at odds with the government's stated goal of making Australia an innovation nation. Australia can only succeed as an innovation nation if we are able to invest in the skills and the jobs of the future.

Mr Hunt interjecting—

The Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, in the chamber, is part of a government which is making cuts in renewables investment. I have seen in my electorate of Fenner the benefits of the hard work that is being done.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You struggled with that.

Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister Hunt correctly points out that I struggled with that, because I was thinking of a program of the Australian National University in my former electorate of Fraser but not in my current electorate of Fenner. For the minister's benefit, let me say a few words about that innovation program and the way that it is at risk from this government. The research being done at the Australian National University into solar, like the research being done at the CSIRO, means jobs of the future in renewables. Here we have a government that wants to fearmonger about renewables; it takes the excuse of a weather event to fearmonger about renewables jobs, despite the fact that almost all of the new electricity investment over the course of the past decade has been in renewables and the fact that innovation in renewables is a core part of the Australian renewables agenda.

The work that Australian universities do is absolutely vital in laying the platform for industry to succeed. That research needs to have the ability to focus on areas where scientists see new opportunities. If it is too boxed in, too directed, we may not come up with truly breakthrough innovations. Take the example of wi-fi, developed at CSIRO. The wi-fi technology came out of mathematical work on fast Fourier transforms. The scientists were not working on that particular problem with the goal of developing wi-fi, but they were able to develop wi-fi from it. That demonstrates the risk of telling scientists that they must only work on problems where, from the outset, they can see the commercialisation path. Great breakthroughs such as wi-fi often involve a little tinkering—giving great scientists the resources they need in order to make breakthrough innovation.

We on this side of the House understand how innovation happens. We understand the importance of supporting scientists to do great bench research. Here in the ACT I am extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with a range of the entrepreneurs who are at various start-up hubs across the ACT. The work of innovators in the ACT goes to innovators in defence technologies, in ICT, in textiles—right across the spectrum. They are young innovators and old innovators, and the innovation hub in the centre of the ACT has the highest share of women of any innovation hub across the country.

So while Labor support this bill, we do so with a wish that Australia had a government that could truly stand behind an innovation and science agenda. We do so with a wish that Australia had a government that could move beyond buzzwords and the sort of innovation agenda you would get if you googled '10 ideas for boosting innovation' to a true innovation agenda that transforms Australian thinking, through schools and universities and through providing opportunities for Australians to invest in science and reap the benefits through entrepreneurship.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Industry Research and Development Amendment (Innovation and Science Australia) Bill. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this bill because my electorate of Ryan is home to many outstanding research facilities and scientific minds, and this bill will provide a strong foundation for the future of science and innovation across Australia. This bill establishes the new independent body Innovation and Science Australia (ISA). ISA will be responsible for strategic, whole-of-government advice and for setting direction on all science, research and innovation matters, and is a measure of the Turnbull government's commitment to its National Innovation and Science Agenda. As the peak government body for science and innovation in Australia, ISA will publish its research and advice, and will publicly advocate reforms on key issues such as innovation investment, innovation and, most importantly, collaboration. Testament to our government's fiscal responsibility, ISA will better plan and use Australia's investment in research and development. Additionally, the bill will create a statutory framework for the minister to prescribe industry, innovation, science and research programs by legislative instrument.

Industry research, development and innovation are well and truly established in my electorate of Ryan, which boasts some of the world's leading innovators, discoveries and research. This bill will strengthen and encourage further collaboration and work in the sector. In fact, through the establishment of ISA, the coalition government will strengthen extensive business and community stakeholder links with domestic and international players.

This provides me with the perfect segue into how local Ryan SMEs and researchers are tapping into global expertise. Several Ryan electorate businesses and researchers will each receive $7,000 in grants under the government's Global Connections Fund. These grants will support people like Mark Blaskovich from the University of Queensland, Scott Chapman and Ashleigh Cousins from the CSIRO, and Dietmar Hutmacher of Biofabrication Design Solutions to work with their international counterparts on early-stage collaborative meetings and projects that address industry needs. By ISA's assisting key collaborations, these researchers will be able to translate their world-class science and research into growth opportunities.

Life Sciences Queensland, LSQ, is another outstanding example of the calibre of science and research organisations in the Ryan electorate. Headed by their indomitable CEO Mario Pennisi, LSQ supports and grows Queensland's reputation as an international centre of life science and commercial research excellence. LSQ works hard to bring together appropriate players to make a contribution that will strengthen Queensland's and our country's future in life science sectors including human health care, animal health and biotechnology. I look forward to working further with LSQ and Mario Pennisi to ensure Queensland research, innovation and science are supported by ISA to continue their great achievements.

I am proud to say that the prestigious University of Queensland now ranks 55th in the top universities of the world and, importantly, is in the top 10 in commercialisation. Having recently celebrated 80 years of teaching in medicine, the University of Queensland boasts internationally acclaimed researchers like Professor Ian Frazer. Professor Frazer, a local Ryan constituent, was the developer of the HPV vaccine. As an adviser to the World Health Organization, he has dedicated his life to research and the betterment of humankind. Indeed, in his spare time you will see him contributing back to the local community, where he supports the local Rotary and other organisations with wonderful work.

I am sure there are a few members here who cringe at the thought of receiving a needle. Well, as a result of another University of Queensland success story, those days may soon be over. University of Queensland's Professor Mark Kendall and his research team have developed Nanopatch as a needle-free technology to deliver vaccinations, including the polio vaccine. Indeed, the World Health Organization has already put on order several million patches, which will be manufactured locally in Brisbane. As one of Australia's premier research institutions, the University of Queensland tackles significant global challenges, from biosciences and nanotechnology through to sustainable development and social science. This bill will continue to support researchers like Professor Frazer and Professor Kendall and their vital work.

The Queensland Centre for Advanced Technologies, located at Pinjarra Hills in the Ryan electorate, is Australia's largest integrated research and development precinct. It is a leading facility that will benefit from this bill. QCAT, as it is known, provides world-class science, engineering and innovation to Australian mining and associated industries. A collaboration between CSIRO, the Queensland government and other R&D centres, QCAT is attracting research and developers seeking to benefit from the precinct's offerings. These efforts are testament again to not only the brilliant minds of researchers in my electorate but also the world-class research being conducted in Australia. We were delighted at Boeing's recent announcement that they were expanding their R&D facility at the University of Queensland, which will mean more jobs for local people and more jobs in the important STEM sector.

Australia is spending $10.1 billion each year on science research and innovation at the federal government level alone. The ISA will ensure that this spending is properly targeted and well spent, instead of the current fragmented advice and decision-making. By establishing Innovation and Science Australia, the coalition government is ensuring that today's investment in innovation will create jobs and growth opportunities which will contribute to our economy in the future. Australians and my constituents alike can be assured that the coalition government's $1.1 billion National Innovation and Science Agenda places them at the very forefront of industry research and development. This bill creates the right settings to assist existing innovative organisations to grow, and to aid new innovative market entries. I congratulate the minister and commend this bill to the House.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Industry Research and Development Amendment (Innovation and Science Australia) Bill 2016, which was introduced recently by the minister, who is in the House. It gives us a great opportunity to reflect on where we are headed in this space. From my own particular point of view, having had the digital economy and future work added to my portfolio of responsibilities of, for which I am grateful, these types of things are very big issues for the nation, both now and into the future. Our digital economy was estimated by Deloitte last year to stand at about $80 billion, which is not a small thing. It is estimated that it will rise in future years to nearly $140 billion and the application of digital technology is set to provide a huge economic bonanza, not just in terms of extra businesses and the value of those businesses and their output, but obviously in terms of jobs. It is very important.

But what has happened in this space in the immediate aftermath of the election is interesting. Last year everybody was talking about innovation—everyone was talking about how big it was to the country. There was a big focus on early-stage innovation particularly. Both the member for Griffith and I have taken a deep interest in this for quite some time. We actually spent time over in Silicon Valley earlier this year, where we visited places like 500 Startups, which is one of the great examples of how to build start-up communities and, in particular, new firms that are providing opportunities for jobs. In the Australian context we can see from figures produced by the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science that between 2003 and 2014 two million net new jobs were created by very young enterprises. A lot of those are start-ups.

But all the focus that we saw on start-ups has gone. It seems to have literally disappeared from the political landscape in this country. I do not know why. I would be interested in knowing why there has been such a retreat. The start-up community in Australia was very supportive of the Turnbull government. They were very vocal in their support of some of the things that are being done, but you hardly hear the new minister, who is here today, talk about them. In fact, he is leading the retreat from any discussion on start-ups. Agility these days equals speed a retreat—that is what agility means. The exciting time to beat a retreat is right now under this new minister, who brings in these bills that ostensibly are part of the National Innovation and Science Agenda. I basically see a lot of this stuff as being make-work for a minister who is not really interested in championing the cause of start-ups.

The argument now is that we need to broaden it out—that there are existing SMEs for which we need to be focused on how to make them innovate more. On paper that sounds great, but the reality is that it is quite different. Those opposite do not have the capacity to argue the case for the start-up sector in this country, because they have detected that there is a degree of reticence in the Australian community about the impact of technological change on jobs. There is no denying that is there. It is a reality. But the key for us is to keep focusing on the huge job-creating capacity of start-ups in this country, from the figures I have quoted before, and also to help manage the change going forward. But there is absolutely no game plan from those opposite. It is why the federal opposition has added specifically a responsibility within our shadow ministry for looking at the future of work to deal with the fact that automation will change the nature of work in this country, as it will in most advanced economies. It will change jobs right from entry-level ones through to jobs that are being done now by white-collar people in blue-collar people.

You have 3-D printed homes in China, as is happening right now, and you see entry-level jobs that have completely changed because automation is doing the work that people used to do. Look at some of the categories. For instance, drivers' jobs will change as they potentially are impacted by self-driving vehicles. Even this afternoon I was speaking to people about how journalists, for instance, can see automation occurring within their field, as well. The reality is that those jobs are going to change. Between 10 and 40 per cent of jobs will be impacted by automation and we need a game plan not. Those opposite do not have it. When they pick up the anxiety of the general public in relation to this issue, they retreat. They equate any talk about start-ups and early-stage innovation with causing an anxiety that they are unable to deal with.

You can see that inability in the way that they fail to support school funding in this country, in the way that they fail to support the expansion of TAFE in this country and in the way that they fail to support the proper expansion of universities and tertiary education in this country. When they retreat, we see what we are getting from this innovation minister. I am surprised about the comments I am picking up from the start-up community about the blase nature of this innovation minister towards the start-up community. Prominent members of the start-up community have told me—

Mr Hunt interjecting—

What, so that you can go on a witch-hunt. Prominent members of the start-up community have told me that they have tried to meet with you, Minister, and have been told that they can meet with an adviser. Roundtables are held instead of actually going and meeting with the community itself. Why is it that we have this? The reason is that you have an inability to engage with the sector. Ever since you have come into the job—

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don't come in here and make a concocted, fabricated—

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not need to fabricate anything, Minister, because I am picking it up on the ground and I know the people have said to me—

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I remind the shadow minister to address the chair.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

People have said to me, 'I cannot believe the minister is not interested in meeting with us but instead just relegates it to an adviser-level meeting instead of doing the job properly.'

Mr Hunt interjecting—

No. Do you know why? Everyone knows, Minister Hunt, that on that side of politics if you dare say anything against this government you will be on the list and you will cop all sorts of bad treatment. The reality is that people know you are not up to the task, Minister, of being able to champion the issues for the start-up community. And so, instead of recognising the reality that in terms of the rate of formation of start-ups in this country—

Mr Hunt interjecting—

I've got him going! I have never seen so much animation and energy from him. If only he had delivered it in the short space of time that he has been an innovation minister. Also overseeing—

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The world's greatest minister.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The world's greatest minister, exactly. The nation did welcome that with a degree of 'wide-spread irony', I believe the term is—that was the way it was received. At any rate—

Mr Hunt interjecting—

No, you should go out. You should go and tell people. That is how you should introduce yourself, Minister: the world's greatest minister. 'I'm Greg Hunt. I'm the world's greatest minister.' Go and talk to people like that. I actually extend to you the invitation to do that.

The realisation is this: it is not in your heart to champion them. You are not out there championing them. You are not recognising the fact that the rate of start-up formation in this country, relative to other countries, is low and that we need to deal with it. If you think that the ecosystem will purely be sustained by focusing on established businesses and that they will drive innovation of themselves without dealing with the fact that start-ups and the early-stage innovation sector—the early green shoots of innovation in this country—are not being formed at the rate of elsewhere, it needs to get the focus now; otherwise, what happens is that we just import ideas. That is all we do—we import ideas and other processes instead of doing it ourselves.

That is the reality—that if you do not provide that focus to early-stage innovation and ensure that the capital and the talent is flowing into the sector, all that will happen is that we will see atrophy. We will be the first to come second. That is what will be happening—instead of being able to rely on our own skills to see the growth of start-ups in this country, the growth of those ideas and the embracing of these by SMEs and big businesses.

At this stage, there is absolutely no promise that this government will continue to champion it, certainly not under this minister, and there will be a continued inability to argue for the types of things that do need to change. These include the need to deal with the crippling shortages of skills that will help sustain those start-ups and get them ready for growth, and the need for the investment that is required to sustain those ideas and see their expansion. I noticed, for example, that the minister has announced the expansion of the accelerator program, which we had argued—

Mr Hunt interjecting—

It was not your idea, actually. Someone else had to think of it for you. It was an idea that was announced during the campaign as a result of the type of pressure that the federal opposition was putting on the government to increase the amount of investment that you had dedicated. The reality is that you only set aside $8 million for that accelerator support. It is now $25 million or $23 million. It was expanded because, when we were going around the nation, in regional Australia, and saying that we should be seeing start-up communities emerge beyond city boundaries and that we needed more support for that, such as working with the higher education sector, working with local chambers of commerce, working with others—

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Have you been to the University of Wollongong?

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I have actually. I have been to the University of Wollongong.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When?

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Two years ago and last year.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was there two weeks ago.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Good for you. That is great. It is great to see that you actually do something, and it would be interesting to see if you can up come with an idea other than something that was championed by Christopher Pyne or in response to the pressure that we have been putting on, but we will not see you champion that.

Mr Hunt interjecting—

We will wait and see, Minister. As I said, what has become obvious is that we do need to have more of a focus in this space. Other countries have worked out that if they mobilise and put the commitment in early, they will see the response. They will see communities emerge where early-stage innovation is embraced, new firms are being created and jobs are being generated, as a result of that, to deal with the type of job impact that happens through technological change and automation. And people will see that it is not just in the heart of cities that this type of innovation occurs, but that it came happen in the regions—like in Bega. I visited Bega with the member for Eden-Monaro last year and earlier this year, and we saw the types of things that were happening there in innovation week. A small start-up community has emerged there. It is backed up by local people who are willing to invest in that innovation, and we saw that type of job creation emerge there.

Why shouldn't it happen down there in Bega? Why shouldn't it happen out in Maitland—where I visited earlier—where start-ups are looking to secure markets in Australia, the US and Europe?

Mr Kelly interjecting—

They are backed by a proper investment in platform infrastructure, as rightly pointed out by my colleague and friend the member for Eden-Monaro, in the NBN, which needs to happen as well. Why should it not happen in other parts of the country as well, where they believe that they can turn around economic fortune by an investment in people, skills and infrastructure to make that occur? It should not be something that is just restricted to the inner city. It should be something that sees knowledge jobs created out in our suburbs and regions. That needs a championing as well for the resources to go in there.

It is not going to happen if you purely think that the only way you are going to do it is by driving innovation or adopting someone else's idea without having a solid, early-stage innovation culture being generated in this country. That is what is at risk right now. Your retreat from the start-up community in this country, your failure to talk up for them and this whole diluting of this message that we are seeing, right now, is a terrible indictment. It is also a failure to support a start-up community that invested a lot of itself in supporting the Turnbull government and that believed you would be able to continue championing their cause, but they cannot see that being delivered right now. The test will be whether or not we see a change. But based on the early indications, I do not think that there will be. I think this is a government that are now settled in their view that it is too tricky, too difficult and beyond their wit and capability to argue that, because the world is going to change through automation and technology, we need to be ready for it, we can be ready for it and we can maximise the benefit to the economy and communities across the country. We also need to ensure that, when others in the world want to work out how thriving start-up communities can emerge, they look to Australia for a change, instead of us always having to look to another part of the world—to Silicon Valley, to Israel or to somewhere else—to learn lessons. We should be driving the lessons, not the other way around. (Time expired)

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a real pleasure to follow the member for Chifley in relation to the Industry Research and Development Amendment (Innovation and Science Australia) Bill 2016 because he has been one of Australia's leading proponents of the start-up sector and of innovation for a very long time. We are very fortunate to have him on this side of the House because he is such a passionate advocate for the sector and for high-growth start-up firms. He is someone who has a wealth of knowledge in relation to the issues facing the sector.

That is why he was able to do such great work in really leading the charge in developing crowdsourced equity funding in this country. I was very fortunate to follow him in the debate on the Corporations Amendment (Crowd-sourced Funding) Bill 2015 as well. He outlined some of the changes that needed to be made in relation to that bill not just because of his own view, his own opinion, but also because the stakeholders had been calling for changes. For example, there were some really pragmatic, sensible changes that AVCAL—the Australian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association Limited—had proposed to make the crowdsourced equity funding provisions more workable. I am very fortunate to have done some work with AVCAL.

In the last parliament, the now Speaker and I formed a bipartisan group—the Parliamentary Friends of Innovation and Enterprise. We worked across the sector. We worked with AVCAL, and we heard from venture capitalists and angel investors. We involved the university sector, we involved start-ups themselves, and we involved everyone with an interest in innovation in this country and, specifically, with an interest in relation to start-ups and new high-growth enterprises. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with AVCAL and many other stakeholders in that process. They are the people at the front line. They are the people who have a real understanding of what it is going to take to do something about the fact that, in Australia, there is more money punted on the Melbourne Cup than there is invested in early-stage start-ups.

I am pleased to speak in support of this bill because, in fact, Innovate Australia was our policy. It is a policy that the coalition mirrored. It is a policy that we announced—

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, yes?

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Check the scoreboard, mate! I should not have called you 'mate'. You are not my mate; that is very clear. I should have called you 'minister'. My mates tend to be more interested in promoting the interests of start-ups and high-growth firms—people like the member for Chifley, who is my mate, and I am very pleased that he is.

Of course, the interesting thing about the policy is that we announced our policy to establish a new entity called Innovate Australia, based on the highly successful UK model, and then a very short time later the coalition decided to announce the same policy. So we support the creation of an entity that mirrors our policy. We are very pleased that the coalition reached out and had some bipartisanship on that aspect of our innovation policies, but we wish that they would adopt more of our policies that we took to the election in relation to innovation because ours were better and more comprehensive.

Specifically, what is happening here is a very piecemeal approach to innovation in this country. That is not good enough because there is a pressing imperative to diversify Australia's economy and early-stage, high-growth firms are an important part of that diversification. We would encourage the government to continue reading our policies that we announced before the election and to consider what other parts of our platform it might be interested in implementing so that we can work together to do that. In fact, if the government is looking for other inspiration, it could take a leaf out of the book of Minister Enoch in Queensland—a visionary minister in the Queensland Labor government led by Annastacia Palaszczuk. In her first term as a member of parliament, she became the innovation minister and went into bat for the importance of supporting innovation in Queensland and the diversification of our economy. The consequence of that is the incredibly successful advance of the Queensland program, which has been supported to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. These things are so important because of that pressing need to diversify, because we need to know where the jobs of the future are going to come from and because high-growth firms are job creators.

I know that it can be scary. It can be worrying for a parent; I am a parent myself. My kids are six and four, and Troy and I often worry about the jobs that our kids will have access to in the future when they are a bit older. I know that it is very concerning for a parent to try to look into the future and guess what sorts of jobs are going to exist and what sorts of skills the kids are going to need in order to have those jobs. But that is a reason to be bolder, not more cautious. It is a reason to press ahead with reform, not retreat to the idea that we just close our eyes and hope that things might not change. That is not going to work. We have to embrace the opportunities that are going to be brought by the new and emerging economy. That includes the necessity of thinking about how innovation policy can support high-growth firms that can create jobs.

I said that the government could look for inspiration from the balance of our platform. Of course I wanted to mention the shadow minister, who is here with us tonight—the member for Chifley—but other leaders amongst the parliamentary Labor Party also put together a phenomenal platform to take to the election in relation to innovation. I could not possibly talk about all of it because we would be here for another five hours if I tried to do that. But I want to mention that that policy really aimed at looking at where the money is going to come from to invest in these early-stage firms, how are we going to make sure that people who have great ideas can pitch for the capital that is available and how are they going to be supported through the information that they need? Anyone who has ever started a business would know that you need lots of information and support. You need to know practical things such as: how do you employ people legally and how on earth do you deal with suppliers and the tax office?

There is a range of things that need to be done in that regard, and of course we need policies that will do other things. We need policies that will promote the right skills.

That is why I was so pleased to announce, with the member for Chifley and of course with the Leader of the Opposition in Sydney last year, a program to get girls into coding. We had Code Club there. They were doing a program at Sydney Town Hall, and there were so many young people, but particularly girls—teenage girls learning coding and learning computational thinking through physical objects. It was an amazing place to be and it was a fantastic program.

When I first came to this place and we were talking about coding being needed for primary schools, in 2014, the coalition government laughed at the idea that we would have coding in primary schools. I think they really just did not understand the imperative. And now whenever I go into schools and I see the digital literacy curriculum being rolled out and I see the support the Queensland government is giving to schools in my state that are doing that and I talk to teachers and I talk to principals and I talk to parents—there is such a big move on to make sure that computational thinking is being taught.

My portfolio responsibility is higher education, and I was lucky recently to visit the Queensland University of Technology's school holiday STEM camp to see kids from across almost 200 schools in Queensland, to actually be at these different projects happening at that camp. There is an amazing piece of work being done in relation to biomanufacturing where they are 3D modelling people's ears for kids who are born without one of their ears. A mould is created for that, and the kids were learning about 3D printing in a form of silicon so that kids can have a second ear. I was so fortunate to see those grade 11 kids actually getting hands-on experience of that really serious and fascinating research and biomanufacturing project, led by Associate Professor Mia Woodruff at the Queensland University of Technology.

So, getting those skills right is important, from early education through school through vocational education through universities, and I am so proud of the policies we took to the election in relation to those things from capital to supporting the start-up sector and having an Australia in which it is possible to see how people could benefit from these new and emerging businesses in the future. Just to give you an example, I was recently given the opportunity to go to Commerce Queensland—or, I should say, the CCIQ, nowadays; I am showing my age! They have a collaboration with BlueChilli. People would know about BlueChilli, which is a really significant and leading accelerator program. The founder of the program came and spoke to a Friends of Innovation event for us when we kicked it off. They have a really great collaboration—Collaborate—in Queensland. The member for Chifley and the shadow Treasurer and Pat O'Neill and I were very fortunate to go for a tour through Collaborate and then address the stakeholders who were involved in that.

When we were there we talked to a lot of the start-ups that were just starting up their businesses, getting ready, looking at how to be high-growth, and I met this amazing man. He has a vision that I think every member of this House could get behind: a vision to make beer a force for good—

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It already is a force for good!

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

even more of a force for good, member for Wakefield, than it already is. That man is James Grugeon, and his business, The Good Beer Co, is working with organisations to find a social purpose for beer. It is a social enterprise that channels profits from beers into social purposes. There is a really great example. They have been doing work with the Australian Marine Conservation Society, one of Australia's leading environmental organisations, a society that is working tirelessly to do things like protect the Great Barrier Reef and protect and lobby for marine reserves. They are an amazing organisation. I have had a lot to do with them and I am always inspired when I get to talk with them. They have a collaboration with The Good Beer Co aimed at having people drink beer in order to support the Great Barrier Reef. You just could not think of a better thing to do on a Friday night than have a beer and at the same time support the Great Barrier Reef.

These are the sorts of new and innovative enterprises that are starting to emerge. The example I just gave was of a social enterprise, which is a particular type of enterprise that aims to have a social purpose, whether for profit or not. Most of them are for-profit enterprises—people who want to make money and do good, which I heartily support. Those sorts of new enterprises are fledgling in this country, but they can be incredibly successful if the policy settings are right. As I said, if the government wants to find inspiration for how to get those policy settings right, they are more than welcome to look at other parts of our policy that they might wish to mirror in the way that they have mirrored it in this bill for Innovate Australia. But they could also look to Queensland. I am a Queenslander, and I am a proud Queenslander. It is wonderful to be a Queenslander, not just because of our amazing history in winning the State of Origin so often, so many times, and not just because of people like Johnathan Thurston and Cameron Smith.

An honourable member: You always bring that up.

Yes, we do always bring this up. I will take that interjection. We certainly do always bring up our sporting prowess. But the other prowess that I want to mention is our prowess in supporting innovation and start-ups. I want to pay tribute to Minister Leeanne Enoch for the work she has done. Advance Queensland is aimed at making Queensland the nation's innovation leader, not just the State of Origin leader. It is a $405 million program that was announced this year to build on the work the Palaszczuk government has done since being elected. It feels like they have been there a long time, because they have achieved so much, but they were actually elected only in 2015. They have done so much in that time, and this package is so important because it really, as a budget centrepiece, is aimed at building on the work that has been done to diversify our Queensland economy. What I love about it is that it is taking the original Advance Queensland program, which was almost $200 million in investment in the government's first year as a government, and turning it into a whole-of-government plan—a whole-of-government innovation agenda worth $405 million.

Queensland is backing the innovators—start-ups, small business as well as schoolkids, farmers, scientists, researchers, tradespeople, engineers, doctors, teachers—to create a new era of opportunity. That is including work that is being done in the cities, including my city of Brisbane, but also in a way that is highly consistent with what federal Labor did, looking at how on earth we are going to help make sure that in the regions people have the same opportunities as kids in the cities have to really promote their good ideas and to turn them into good businesses.

One of the things that is being done is support for regional innovation hubs, including the Cairns Innovation Centre that is being established. We really support that, because we know that innovation should be something that improves economic activity and opportunities for the entire country, not just for people in the cities. So I want to commend the bill. Of course we support the bill, but it should go much further. It is too piecemeal. There is much more to be done, and there is plenty of inspiration from the Labor Party policies.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Industry Research and Development Amendment (Innovation and Science Australia) Bill 2016. It is good to see a furious bipartisanship emerging in this parliament on innovation, because that is what we need. These ideas, this research and science and progress, last longer than any one government or administration here—certainly, at the rate we have been going through them in recent years—and probably outlasts all of our contributions in this House.

What we do need is a fairly long-term, bipartisan and consensus-based approach. We do see that. In 1990 the Hawke government established the cooperative research centres. Over 26 years some $4 billion has been allocated. Over that time 211 cooperative research centres have been established, and they have done wonderful things. In 2009 Labor had a national innovation strategy called Powering Ideas. In the last year we were in government innovation funds had grown to $10 billion; that was a 50 per cent increase over the time that we were in government. So Labor has a proud record in this area, and we intend to build on it when the Shorten government takes its place in this parliament. It will not be long now, given the way the current mob are going.

We are happy to support this bill because it does good things that will provide a framework for us to do things in government. As my two colleagues have observed, it largely mirrors Labor's policy approach in any event.

One observation I would like to make about innovation is that we have been very, very good in this country at talking about what we have missed, and very good at talking ourselves down. Often we adopt a whole series of myths about the fact, as is commonly said, that we are good at inventing things and bad at commercialising things. In a global world, with global supply chains, this is outdated thinking. It is really 1970s thinking. We really have to be better at selling ourselves, at backing our good ideas, at realising, as the shadow minister said, that we should be celebrating things that are happening here and leading the world here. In order to do that, we really have to celebrate our successes.

Last Thursday I was lucky enough to go to Australian Institute of Nanoscale Science and Technology. This was a building at the University of Sydney. It was funded with some $40 million to build it, funded in the last Labor government. It is an achievement that we should be very proud of. This institute will benefit the whole of Australia and will exist over many different governments of many different political persuasions. Regardless of our party identification we should be celebrating this Australian Institute of Nanoscale Science and Technology. It will undoubtedly make a huge contribution to science and research, not just in our country, but around the globe.

I have to thank the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Duncan Ivison, and Kirsten Andrews for organising the visit, and particularly the director of the institute, Professor Thomas Maschmeyer, Associate Professor Maryanne Large, Professor Zdenka Kuncic, Professor David Reilly and Associate Professor Michael Biercuk. As you can tell, they are from around the world, and no doubt the shadow minister will correct my pronunciation in subsequent speeches when he visits them. This institute and the people who work in it are really extraordinary people in an extraordinary facility, a world-beating facility which is working hand in hand with industry, in this case Microsoft, and doing it all from our international city, Sydney. I would recommend this document, The next giant leap is seriously small, to members. It is a very good document. I recommend that all members visit the institute. For those who think that these things do not have some effect on our everyday life or on other debates in this building, there are people with expertise in physics, chemistry, engineering and medical science, all working in the one building, all sitting around the one table and all interacting in research that really will change the world and industry.

One of the products they are looking at is super-strong steel. That has a very real application, I would imagine, to the Australian steel industry, where we have to add value and we cannot just be producing what is essentially now a commodity. We have to be adding value and we have to be using science and innovation in order to do that.

I would like to commend the institute for its good work and I commend the bill to the House. I hope that we have a furious bipartisanship in this policy area and that our differences in this area are small and our advances are very big.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank all of the speakers in this debate on the Industry Research and Development Amendment (Innovation and Science Australia) Bill and make some brief observations. Firstly, the member for Ryan pointed out the role of the University of Queensland in her own electorate. I know that the vice-chancellor and I have had discussions, and I intend to visit them and talk about the innovation and start-up approach going forward with his university and the work that they are doing.

Secondly, we heard some Walter Mitty-like comments from a series of opposition speakers, where they seemed to fantasise that they had somehow been responsible for the work of the government in creating the National Innovation and Science Agenda. I would actually rather give credit to my predecessor, who is in the chamber at this moment, as something which was created on his watch and is being delivered on ours. I will give credit where credit is due to my predecessor.

Let me give the House a brief update on progress because, since this bill itself has been introduced, we have made extraordinary progress. Over the last three months, since 1 July, the National Innovation and Science Agenda has been going forward at, potentially, the fastest pace in Australian history. In particular, let me run through what we are doing about culture and capital, investment and collaboration in big science by bringing talent—young women as well as young men—into the science, technology, engineering and maths space before looking at where we are going, in the future, and then just concluding on the bill itself.

In terms of investment, just in the last few weeks we have achieved a series of things. We have launched the Biomedical Translation Fund—a $500 million fund—to take science from the lab and commercialise it, whether it is through start-ups or existing firms. Already, we have seen a huge response with more than triple the capital sought by the federal government being offered by the private sector. That is a stunning success. It lays the foundation for a national innovation fund on a broader scale, which I have outlined as an agenda item since coming into the portfolio, as part of a second wave of the National Innovation and Science Agenda. The Biomedical Translation Fund is already far exceeding our best possible expectations, and that was launched on 3 August. Similarly, the tax incentives for early-stage investors—the 'angel investors' program—is in place and up and running. It has already received considerable support from within the venture capital community, through my discussions, the start-up community and through the financial sector.

The new arrangements for Venture Capital Limited Partnerships have come into effect. The CSIRO accelerator program has already been announced. I launched the incubator support program at Stone & Chalk only a few weeks ago. Whilst I was there I met with numerous different start-ups and had discussions with them, and it has been a real privilege to work with that sector. So far, meetings have included the Australian Private Equity & Venture Capital Association; StartupAUS; Stone & Chalk; a variety of firms at the University of Wollongong in their incubator; the Australian Information Industry Association and a huge network of firms that we met, with them, in an extended discussion about the needs of the sector; AusBiotech; and the University of Newcastle, where we launched only last week Australia's first—and the Australian government's first—medical precinct task force. The university precinct task force created a hub, a cluster or a precinct built around the new medical school—the Central Coast Medical School and Research Institute, which the member for Robertson, Lucy Wicks, fought for and is now delivering. So they will not just stop at the construction jobs or the 750 jobs associated with the medical school once it is up and running. They will create a whole additional wave of employment through an incubator and start-up program built around it, and we announced that only last week.

To go on, we worked with Tyro, Seatfrog and other start-ups within the Tyro network. We had discussions with people such as Daniel Petri and Bill Ferris, Blackbird Ventures and many others that are slated to come forward. I have been fortunate enough in my life, prior to coming into this place, to work with McKinsey & Company in this space. It is one of those long and abiding personal passions of my career to have been associated with the foundation of one of Australia's great start-up firms, Aconex, which is now worth more than $1 billion, and I had the fortune of being involved right at the commencement of their operations. As a foundation investor I have seen and lived this journey, and it remains one of my great passions. To be in this space now is a tremendous honour.

In collaboration we have handed over the synchrotron and the Commonwealth now has title and responsibility. We have launched the Global Innovation Strategy, in terms of the Global Connections Fund—the Priming Grants. We have launched the Global Innovation Strategy landing pads. We have completed the contract for quantum computing, in terms of what we have done with the University of New South Wales. We have launched the ARC linkage grants. In terms of women in STEM, on 19 August we announced the women in STEM program initiative, which we twinned with the entrepreneurs visa. We have more to come, in relation to the 'inspiring a nation of scientists', with the PM's prize for science, so we could not be moving faster in this space.

Having said that, there is a whole second and third wave of the National Innovation and Science Agenda. The second wave is about private sector investment—driving forward the space with which I have had the fortune to work on, on an almost daily basis, since coming into this role and driving forward the accumulation of private capital and funds into this area. A national innovation fund is an idea which I have proposed, which is gaining considerable traction and which I am very hopeful we will be able to deliver in the first quarter of next year. At the same time we are looking, as part of the second wave of the innovation agenda, additional support for critical science infrastructure, which will come in response to the Chief Scientist's, Alan Finkel's, road map on critical science infrastructure.

The third wave of what we are seeking to do in 2018 is we have already commenced the process of a National Business Simplification Initiative. Dramatically—

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear!

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh! the assistant minister is in the chamber. The member for Reid, Craig Laundy, is driving this forward. To give you an example, take registration of a cafe in Western Sydney from seven months down to two months—that is the sort of real-world practical outcome which we want to achieve, because very few things will have more impact on creating new businesses than reducing bureaucracy and red tape. But we are not just going to do it ourselves; we are engaging the states and the councils on this.

The other element of the third wave is a national strategy for university precincts. This has never been done in Australian history. We have never had a national strategy for university precincts, driven from the top, working with each of the 39 public universities in Australia. I am happy to work with the private ones as well. That is where we will see 2¼ times the rate of growth in jobs formation as opposed to the general economy.

The United States and Germany are arguably university driven economies. Australia has had great success on the university front, but we have not been a university driven economy. In my time and my term, that is one thing which I wish to see and to which, as a government, we want to move towards.

That then brings me finally to the bill itself. This bill, as has been discussed, establishes Innovation and Science Australia. It lays out the pathway for the audit. It lays out the pathway for the 2030 plan for innovation and science. We had first, second and third waves of innovation and science. This is about planning right out to 2030. It is taking the long view but twinning it with practical action now. Ultimately, under Bill Ferris and Alan Finkel, Innovation and Science Australia will bring some of the best minds in the country together to attract investment, to drive long-term planning and to help drive government's role as an exemplar.

For those reasons, I want to thank all involved and commend my predecessor and the Prime Minister, who has made this a strong, personal passion. As we drive jobs and prepare for the future, this agenda will be the pathway for assisting the nation to do it and to do it effectively. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.