Gladys Liu (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology. Will the minister update the House on how the Morrison government's research and development tax incentives are helping Australian businesses to innovate and create jobs as part of Australia's economic recovery plan? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chisholm for her question. I know that she, like the government, is backing business. She knows that the government is committed to policies that help fantastic Australian businesses to grow the economy and create jobs as we come out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The member asked about the government's research and development tax incentive. That provides around $2 billion per year in support of research and development, and it applies to a range of businesses across manufacturing, agriculture, health care and a variety of scientific fields. One of those businesses is in the member for Chisholm's electorate. It's a great business called RayGen. They are using the R&D tax incentive to change the way that solar energy is captured and stored. Richard Payne, the chief executive officer of that great company, said this about the government's tax incentive policy:

The R&D tax incentive enables us to be able to employ very highly skilled individuals to develop our core technology which needs extensive R&D to prove itself out in a commercial environment.

That's a great example of how that policy is having a practical on-the-ground effect—backing business, innovating and creating new jobs. Of course, part of this is about unlocking the private sector investment that creates the path for a business to deliver onto the world stage. We are now also investing a further $2 billion over the forward estimates in the R&D tax incentive. That will see the cap removed on refunds. It lifts the rate and it further rewards businesses that invest the most in R&D.

Further, and very importantly, the R&D tax incentive is supported and complemented by a range of other policies: the $1.5 billion Modern Manufacturing Strategy in high-value areas of manufacturing, where Australia has a clear competitive strength on emerging priorities; tax incentives for early-stage investment, which has seen about $630 million invested in innovative companies; the patent box, which was announced in this year's budget, with lower taxes for income derived from medical and biotech patents; and the $600 million Entrepreneurs Program. That has helped 20,000 businesses innovate and commercialise. Of those individual businesses, on average, each business has created four new jobs and generated over $1.5 million extra revenue for that business. When you look at it, that is a very comprehensive suite of policies that is driving innovation, research and development and growing business.

I'm asked about alternatives: are there any alternative policies? Well, there are certainly not any new alternative policies; there are a few old alternative policies. There is, of course, Startup Year, which is a six-year-old alternative policy from the member for Maribyrnong that was reannounced. The other policies are basically $387 billion worth of taxes on the economy from the last election which were rejected but never dumped. So you've got the government with new, innovative policies for innovation, and nothing— (Time expired)