Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm an extremely passionate advocate for higher education as both someone who's worked for years in the sector and someone who represents an electorate with Monash University, Deakin University and the University of Divinity campuses, so I know how important our nation's support for higher education is and how important it is to my own local community of Chisholm and our local economy. I do believe we have some of the finest researchers and thinkers in the world in Australia, but we need to do more to see their great ideas thrive and get transformed into innovative products. The Higher Education Support Amendment (Australia's Economic Accelerator) Bill 2022 amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to support our universities in turning Australia's world-class research into the innovative products and processes for the businesses of the future.

In the 2022 World Intellectual Property Organization's Global Innovation Index, Australia was ranked fifth in the world for our human capital and research, which is just incredible and again points to the fact that we have some of the finest minds in the world working right here in Australia. Many of them are working in my electorate of Chisholm, and I'm very proud of that. But we do have a gap when it comes to getting that world-class research to the stage where it can be translated into practical and commercial applications. Research translation and commercialisation is really important, and we need to do better as a nation on that front. I hear about this all the time when I talk to the universities in my electorate and to the businesses in my electorate who are wanting to partner with researchers. But there is such a significant gap at the moment in translation and commercialisation, and that's unfortunately really holding us back as a country. This gap limits those relationships and links that can be forged right across the eastern and south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, in my electorate, with lots of different companies, including those in advanced manufacturing, medical technologies and defence. Many companies would love to be able to do more work with the researchers that live, study and work in our local area.

Research translation and commercialisation is important on a number of fronts. It means that we get a bigger dividend from our investment in research in this country, and that's really important. New technologies developed in Australia improve our production processes. They reduce costs, create innovative new products and lead to greater diversity in our exports, which is really good for our trading relationships and our wealth as a nation. On that same Global Innovation Index where we were ranked fifth in the world for human capital and research—and that is incredible—we were ranked 37th for our knowledge and technology outputs, so we're really seeing a significant gap in those rankings. This means that right now we're not realising the full potential of our university research because we lack the support needed to translate that research and bring it to the commercialisation stage. This is something we need to address. We must address it if we're going to be able to reap the greatest benefits from the wonderful work being undertaken every day in universities right across Australia.

The former government's university research commercialisation panel did consider this problem and recommended a dedicated funding program to help higher education providers to bridge this gap. That's what this bill does. This bill amends the Higher Education Support Act to provide legislative authority to establish Australia's Economic Accelerator program in the Other Grants Guidelines (Research) made under that act. Australia's Economic Accelerator program, or AEA program, is a new funding program targeted at supporting research translation and commercialisation within our universities. It is a program that we should be really excited about and supportive of. This helps us as a nation to unlocks so much fantastic potential, and it will lead to better outcomes for researchers, universities and Australia as we are able to more fully realise the translation and commercialisation possibilities generated by ideas.

Table A and B universities will be able to apply for project funding to progress their projects to a state of commercial investor readiness. All the universities in my electorate are in these categories, and I'm really looking forward to working with them and seeing what they are able to do with this new opportunity. Distinct from other funding models in research, the AEA will have a fast-fail focus. It will fill a gap in the current research commercialisation landscape by funding translational research from early-stage research into a product that shows viability for industry partnership and investment, so we'll be able to know early on what is going to be able to transition into more advanced stages and therefore be more successful. Projects that progress through that program will do so based on the continued success and achievement milestones in the program. This funding will benefit projects which have high commercialisation potential but which are at proof-of-concept or proof-of-scale stage.

In what I think is some really exciting alignment here, funding will be targeted at projects which sit within the priority areas identified in the government's National Reconstruction Fund, which is yet another incredibly important and exciting initiative of the Albanese government and one which I am, frankly, genuinely disappointed that those opposite have indicated they won't support. We stand at a terribly significant moment of rebuilding the nation after the worst impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it would be wonderful if the parliament were able to unite in an effort to stimulate the economy and stimulate industry. I do urge those opposite to reconsider. We get one opportunity to rebuild the country after the kind of crisis we've just seen, and it would be really great if we could unite and do it right. I would encourage those opposite to be on the right side of history here when it comes to supporting industry, the economy and our communities.

The establishment of a $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund is one of the largest peacetime investments in our country's manufacturing capability in living memory. The projects under the AEA program will align with the priority areas of that fund. This alignment is very welcome in my community. The people I've spoken to are incredibly thrilled about this. We will be focusing on the priority areas of value-adding in resources; in agriculture, forestry and fisheries; in transport; in medical science; in renewables and low-emission technologies; in defence capabilities; and in enabling capabilities across sectors like robotics, AI and quantum technologies. I think of the interactions that these priority areas and the universities in my electorate already have, and I've been speaking to them about the work we as a government are undertaking. It is really thrilling to think about the new points of engagement that will be made possible and the new products and ideas to emerge from the AEA as well as from the National Reconstruction Fund. These are areas where Australian research already has runs on the board, and the measures in this bill will support bringing that research to maturity, utilisation and commercialisation.

The bill establishes a governance framework for the AEA program with an advisory board of up to eight expert representatives from government, industry, business and research sectors. The advisory board will oversee the program and make recommendations for grants in accordance with a research commercialisation strategy.

The bill also provides legislative authority to establish a National Industry PhD Program. This new program offers a really great new opportunity to pursue a higher degree and to be a leading part of the industries of the future. We already have a lot of people with PhDs in my community—including me—and I'm really excited about being able to expand opportunities to people right across my community who are interested in pursuing research through the National Industry PhD Program. This is about equipping our PhD students with the skills they need to better translate university research into a range of commercialisation outcomes. The measures will provide a basis for new industry-led postgraduate programs that create a clear and structured career pathway in innovation- and commercialisation-focused research. These programs are intended to embed researchers in industry settings, enhancing research commercialisation and translation skills and helping to build research careers in the industry.

We are so fortunate in this country to have world-leading researchers in our higher education sector, and this bill supports our higher education providers. It supports the providers in my electorate and in communities right across the country, and the researchers who work there, in realising the great potential of Australian ingenuity and innovation. This bill will make it much easier for universities and businesses to work together to commercialise research, which will build our sovereign capability and boost our economy. I'm really looking forward to the possibilities this will open up for the people in Chisholm, and I'm really glad to be able to support this bill today.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition supports the Higher Education Support Amendment (Australia’s Economic Accelerator) Bill 2022, which is, in great part, the reintroduction of the measures introduced by the former coalition government. We'd led a significant piece of work to review our government's significant investment in research to drive even greater benefits for our economy. And, yes, we do know that while we undertake world-leading research and publish more than 100,000 academic papers, we certainly need to do a lot more beyond that initial exploration and translate that into commercial applications to meet some of our greatest challenges.

This will not only highlight Australia's incredible research minds—and they are incredible—but will also provide a boost to our productivity and create new jobs and new industries. The translation element that we introduced was a key component of our $2.2 billion University Research Commercialisation Package, and it outlined a number of key initiatives by placing national manufacturing priorities at the core of Australian government funded research by using priority driven schemes to ramp up commercialisation and deliver university research funding reform to strengthen initiatives for genuine collaboration with industry—this is a key part—and by investing in people who are skilled in university and industry collaboration.

We had a number of elements to our actual plan in that bill. The Trailblazer Universities Program was to boost R&D and drive commercialisation outcomes. There was Australia's Economic Accelerator. There was funding—$150 million—for the CSIRO Main Sequence ventures program to back start-up companies and help create commercial opportunities for Australian research. There was investment in 1,800 industry PhDs and 800 fellows over 10 years as part of that, and a new IP framework for universities to support greater university and industry collaboration—and that is the key, that industry and university collaboration. And even providing what industry needs, and will need ahead, was part of the collaboration.

We had identified a number of priorities in what we put forward, from medical products to food and beverage to recycling and clean energy, resources technology and critical minerals processing, the defence industry and, of course, that critical element of space.

The next element was investment in Australia's Economic Accelerator, which this bill essentially is about today, and making the provisions to support our universities to commercialise what is really world-leading research. We designed the program around initial proof of concept, through that valley of death where projects are at greatest risk of not proceeding through to commercial realisation.

I want to touch on the $150 million we committed to the CSIRO's Main Sequence venture. But, in looking at that, I want to go back to some of the things Australians have done well throughout history, to look at some of the wonderful minds we have, the creative minds both formally and informally, in our universities and beyond. I go back to the stump-jump plough, which was really innovative technology in its time. It was a great piece of gear. There are simple things like the Hills Hoist. And we've got a local bloke in my part of the world, Terry Torr, who invented a wonderful drain spinner that did an enormous amount of work. He was just a bloke who was fixing a problem. We had the Marshall and Roesner super spreader that has been really critical for the agricultural sector.

In Australia, we look at how good we are and how good our researchers and scientists are in this space. Australia is world-leading in quantum computing and IVF, through the Monash IVF program. We look at how good we are in the environmental space with solar cells, the world's first e-waste microfactory and the polymers to clean up contaminants.

In the medical field we are such leaders in this space, from Gardasil vaccines for cervical cancer through the University of Queensland to nanopatch production for vaccines. We've seen innovations just one after the other in Australia. Look at the black box flight recorder. That came out of Australia. It was invented by an Australian scientist, as was spray-on skin from Professor Fiona Wood, from Perth in Western Australia. Look at the incredible effect this had on burns victims. Through this amazing work and innovation, she was credited with saving 28 lives. Another Australian doctor and physicist worked on the electronic pacemaker.

There is the platform for Google Maps—we often don't celebrate enough how good our researchers and our scientists are. There was the medical application of penicillin and, something basic for all of us, polymer banknotes. I'm really proud of the cochlear implant. I think all of us in this House and around Australia would be particularly proud of this Australian device and where it's got to and how it has changed people's lives.

Who would have thought that something as simple as the electric drill was invented and created in Australia? And who can forget Ben Lexcen's winged keel that helped Australia II win that classic America's Cup in 1983. It was all done and created and developed in Australia, like Wi-Fi technology through the CSIRO and the ultrasound scanner. So many of these, particularly in their early stages, came through universities. There is even the plastic spectacle lens—things that we don't think about. It's scratch resistant. It was the first one and was made in Australia and created in Australia.

There are all sorts of wonderful inventions that have started in Australia, but we need to do even more in this space. I just wonder, with all of these things we see on the list that I have just touched on—it's just the tip of the iceberg—what have we missed out on that we haven't commercialised? This bill is important so that we create that connection and improve that process so that we don't miss out on even more innovations and opportunities in Australia and so we provide the platform for other budding scientists and young people who are going to solve so many problems. We look to foster those young minds and researchers, and just simply say to them, 'What problem is it that you want to fix?' because they will have a lot of answers to the problems and the issues that we are facing.

We saw through our extraordinary investment in the Medical Research Future Fund and the grant recipients there that they were mostly universities. So these recipients, the universities, have translated their research into commercialisation in Australia. We were particularly proud as a coalition of introducing and creating this Medical Research Future Fund, and I can look at all the universities and the extraordinary research that has benefited from that particular fund. When I look down the list, there is everything from research and investment into the commercialisation around Australian brain cancer help, there was cardiovascular help, there was dementia and aged care and ageing projects and programs. For me, personally, there is endometriosis research that's looking for that cure for all of those women who are affected by endometriosis in Australia, not only to introduce that first ever national plan but the endometriosis research that is so critical because there is no cure.

To go on from endometriosis, the investment from our amazing Medical Research Future Fund into research around epilepsy, MMD, Parkinson's, various cancers and, even yesterday, into ovarian cancer and coronary heart diseases, genomics. There are so many other areas that benefit from the Medical Research Future Fund. This constant investment in research and then translating that into commercialisation is a critical part of what we need to keep investing in and showing confidence in.

The Medical Research Future Fund is an enduring legacy of the coalition government for the benefit of all Australians. It sees university research funding actually translated into better health outcomes for Australians, as well as commercial results for Australian companies and individuals.

The CSIRO Innovation Fund, launched by the coalition in 2016, led to the creation of what we see here, the main sequence ventures, which led to over 60 company collaborative projects with universities. That's a great outcome. The additional $150 million that we allocated to that in February 2022 was focused on accelerating and commercialising the manufacturing priorities I spoke of earlier.

The AEA program will keep working to attract projects with high commercialisation potential, and that's a really critical part of what we will see through this bill. I am really looking forward to seeing what research is actually commercialised as a result of this investment. We will see more of that as this investment is realised, in the knowledge that research takes time. But I think that very close and strong dedicated involvement not only of the universities and their researchers but with industry and business will really focus the investment, not only on the greatest commercialisation potential but also where the greatest benefit for the Australian community and economy is in a broader sense.

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia has a world-class university sector. From providing high-quality education to top-tier research which revolutionises the world in which we live, there is much to be proud of in our higher education sector. The minister has already stated that Australia was ranked fifth in the world for our human capital and research in the 2022 World Intellectual Property Organization's global innovation index. That is a great achievement for this country.

University staff and students across Australia do amazing and inspiring work, which, frankly, they aren't credited for nearly enough. However, there is still more work to be done and improvements to be made, not least in employment practices at our universities, with far too much university work casualised and that must change.

On the same global innovation index where we are leading on research, we are ranked just 37th for knowledge and technology outputs. We are not currently realising our full potential in university research but that is about to change. This bill will allow Australia to realise its full potential in the university research sector by providing much-needed support to bring research into the translation and commercialisation stage. The former government's university research commercialisation panel considered this problem and it recommended that a dedicated funding program was required to help higher education providers bridge the gap. This bill acts on that recommendation and makes it real. It is no good just talking about it; you've actually got to do it.

At its core, this bill establishes Australia's Economic Accelerator Program under the Higher Education Support Act. This new funding program will be targeted at supporting research translation and commercialisation within our universities, enabling our universities across Australia to apply for project funding to progress their projects to a commercial investor readiness state. This funding won't just focus on shovel-ready research projects but will also fill the gap in funding and support for projects that have high commercialisation, or are at proof-of-concept or proof-of-scale stage. This will open up research potential in ways that have never been done before and provide the ability for worthwhile projects to proceed on merit rather than being blocked at the gate due to an inability to find funding support.

This bill also provides legislative authority to establish a National Industry PhD Program. This will ensure that PhD candidates are equipped with the skills they need to better turn research at university into a range of commercialisation outcomes. This measure will be the bedrock of a new industry-led postgraduate program that will create a clear and structured pathway in innovation and research that is focused on commercialisation. This bill and these measures ensure that our world-leading researchers and our world-leading higher education sector can be better supported in the realisation of Australia's great innovative potential.

With this amendment to the act, universities listed on tables A and B will be eligible for the funding support described in this bill, including the University of Tasmania, which provides high-quality and world-renowned education. UTAS has three main campuses across Tasmania: Burnie in the north-west, Newnham in the north and Sandy Bay in the south—although that's a matter of conjecture now that Sandy Bay could be shifting into central Hobart, but that's probably an argument for another time. UTAS has a wide remit but is particularly well known for its focus on marine science and, increasingly, space science.

Last month I attended the launch of the upgraded space antenna at the UTAS Greenhill Observatory in my electorate. This $2 million communications antenna upgrade, supported by the Australian government and the Australian Space Agency's Space Infrastructure Fund, addresses the gap in national space infrastructure. It will speed up Australia's delivery of space based services and will increase our contribution to space science globally. I was very pleased to address the launch on behalf of the Minister for Industry and Science, Ed Husic. I spoke of the increasing importance of space science both commercially and strategically. UTAS, as part of its Southern Skies Network, provides radio and optical astronomy, as well as radio communications and geospatial modelling, via its network of space telescopes and antenna infrastructure across Australia, including in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. This shows the breadth and significance of university research in this area, which is of critical importance to Australia's future and to which UTAS, down there in Tasmania, is a leading contributor.

UTAS already has a highly respected research component, and now, under the Albanese government, it will be further supported so it can continue to provide world-leading research. Supporting UTAS benefits the people in my electorate, better enabling them to pursue careers in research and jobs that come with the commercialisation of such research. This government is offering Australians more education and career opportunities in higher education, and I am proud to play my part in that.

Labor has a proud history of supporting Australians to achieve higher education. It was Gough Whitlam who first made university education accessible to so many more Australians, a reform which gave so many working-class kids across our country the opportunity for higher education, something they had previously been denied due to the wealth bracket in which they were born. You've got to see what you can become, and, for the first time in Australia's history, more working-class kids could see that a pathway to higher education was open to them. They took that opportunity, and the country has been transformed as a result.

In 2009, the Rudd government ensured fair funding for universities by providing funding for every eligible student they teach, rather than through a system of rationed places. This provided a significant shift in funding, which led to a more student centred funding system. Julia Gillard, as Minister for Education, set a strong target in 2008: to increase the proportion of young people with a degree to 40 per cent by 2020. This target has been met, but it is now up to us, this generation, to ensure that the secondary target—that 20 per cent of people from disadvantaged backgrounds, including First Nations people, receive a higher education—is also achieved.

We don't support higher education just for the sake of it. Higher education leads to better-paying jobs and entryways into corporate and public leadership. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has reported that having qualifications relevant to a person's current job makes a significant difference to people's rates of underemployment. People who have not attained higher education are twice to be underemployed as those with a relevant qualification. They are also more likely to have lower weekly personal incomes than those with qualifications relevant to their jobs.

The Albanese government's Future Made in Australia Skills Plan, which we took to the 2022 federal election, will see up to 20,000 new university places delivered across Australia, mainly in the regions. In doing so, this government is tackling areas of skill shortage and securing future skills needs by training Australian students in jobs including engineering, nursing, tech and teaching. It's a plan that encapsulates the needs of today with the needs of tomorrow and ensures that Australia is on a strong footing for a productive and needs based workforce.

Of course, in providing this investment to universities and this focus on research, we are not leaving TAFE behind. The university places measure is part of the Australian government's $1.2 billion investment under the skills plan, of which the funding will also provide more than 465,000 free TAFE places, including 45,000 new places, particularly in areas of critical skill shortage. This will help to rebuild the industries hit hardest by COVID and meet future needs for multiple industries, including aged care, child care and nursing.

In stark contrast to the Labor Party's proud history in supporting and advocating for higher education, those opposite, I'm sorry to say, leave a history of deriding universities, of demeaning graduates and of dismissing the vital role that higher education plays in our society. Deputy Speaker, we all remember the Abbott government wanted young people in my electorate and yours, and everybody else's, to pay more than $100,000 for a university education. In the last parliament, they jacked up the price of many, many courses. The Liberals' continual attempted Americanisation of Australia's higher education sector has led to more debt for students, less job security for academics and a hollowed-out experience of university life.

In 2020, the Morrison government refused to offer support to the higher education sector during the COVID-19 pandemic by not expanding JobSeeker to include university staff. It was a terrible decision. As a result, the university sector was hit hard, particularly the people in it, and more than 17,000 people lost their jobs; 17,000 people whose jobs were teaching young people were given nothing by way of support—just a terrible, terrible waste. That's 13 per cent of Australia's pre-COVID university workforce. And now, of course, we want them back, and what a job it is getting them back into those jobs.

At the time, the president of the National Tertiary Education Union, Dr Alison Barnes, said:

The parents of Australia should be frankly really alarmed. You have got these figures of job losses coupled with the incredible reductions of courses, and that harms future generations of Australia. It harms anybody who is a school leaver, or who wants to retrain if they lose their job.

Despite those alarm bells and warnings from the sector, the former government never strayed from their agenda of taking a wrecking ball to higher education. They have an appalling history on higher education, for both universities and TAFE, not more towards the culture of higher education and what it can bring, what it means to have a higher education.

Before us today is a bill that will ensure the future capability and capacity of the university sector so that it can be realised in full. It will provide much-needed funding support that will commercialise research and ensure the future of higher education, innovation and research is upheld and entrenched in government policy. I go to the minister's second reading speech and note, very importantly, that 'funding will be targeted at projects which align with the priority areas identified in the government's National Reconstruction Fund'. I couldn't believe it when I read that those opposite are actually going to oppose this government's National Reconstruction Fund. It was a major plank of our election commitment. There's no surprise that we were going to do it. It's just unbelievable, frankly, that those opposite are opposing a national reconstruction fund that is going to do so much for our economy and our manufacturing sector.

My friend and colleague the Minister for Industry and Science introduced legislation to enable the establishment of a $15 billion fund, and he's described it as one of the largest peacetime investments in our country's manufacturing capability. If we are going to be serious about jobs and manufacturing in this country, we've got to get serious about this National Reconstruction Fund. I urge those opposite: rethink your position and get with the program.

The projects under the AEA program, which falls under this bill, will align with the priority areas of the National Reconstruction Fund. Things that will be included are value adding in resources, value adding in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, transport, medical science, renewables and low-emission technologies, defence capabilities and enabling capabilities across sectors like fintech, robotics, AI and quantum technologies.

I have no doubt that in the months and years ahead we're going to have members of the opposition getting up to say, 'Why isn't the government doing something about resources?' or 'Why isn't the government doing something about agriculture?' or 'Why isn't the government doing something about forestry and fisheries?' It's all here, a $15 billion fund to rebuild these industries, to rebuild manufacturing and capability in this country. Yet the Liberal and National parties are opposing it. I just cannot believe it. It must be politics that's driving their opposition, and frankly I don't even see the politics in it other than just opposing for opposition's sake. I urge those opposite to rethink their opposition to the National Reconstruction Fund. It's a great policy for the country going forward and for our economy.

I said at the beginning of the speech that we are currently ranked fifth in the world for our human capital and research, and that's a great outcome for a middle-tier country globally. But we lag badly behind, at 37th in the world for knowledge and technology outputs. Frankly, you can see why that's happened after a decade in which higher education and research were put on the backburner by the former government. This bill will ensure that we are able to bridge this gap and drive up our nation's capability to where it should be. Australia has been before and should be now a world leader in knowledge and technology outputs in the higher education sector, and the passage of this legislation will help us to do just that.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Higher Education Support Amendment (Australia's Economic Accelerator) Bill 2022. As has already been indicated by many of my coalition colleagues, we support this bill. It essentially implements coalition policy announced early last year by the former Prime Minister and built into the former Treasurer's budget. I'm particularly excited by the opportunity that this will have for a number of CRCs that I have been heavily associated with in my home state of South Australia because this legislation creates the Economic Accelerator Fund, which will create a range of commercialisation opportunities for the universities and their partners in a number of R and D initiatives.

Just before I was elected in 2019, it was a thrill to be at the announcement of SmartSat CRC, with the University of South Australia being the leading proponent of the CRC with its many industry partners in the satellite sector. This CRC was chosen to be a successful recipient of funding and since then has been doing amazing work in the smart satellite area. This bill will give them access to the Economic Accelerator for potential commercialisation projects through the partnerships that they have in the CRC. Since I was elected I've worked very closely with the University of Adelaide, my alma mater. They put forward a very compelling bid for the HILT CRC, the Heavy Industry Low-emission Technology Collaborative Research Centre. This CRC is all about finding ways to solve the significant challenges of intensive carbon emissions from heavy industry. These challenges are in steel production, cement, aluminium and the various industrial processes that, in some cases, we are yet to commercially solve in their attempt to become carbon neutral, carbon zero. That HILT CRC, led by the University of Adelaide and with an enormous number of industry partners, was successfully selected and funded. It is now absolutely in existence, and I hope and anticipate that the accelerator fund will provide opportunities for the commercialisation of concepts that potentially come out of that alliance.

The third one is the defence industry Trailblazer Universities Program, which Adelaide university, again, was successful in. We announced that last March-April, just before the caretaker period. The trailblazers program is inextricably connected to the economic accelerator concept; they're within the same overarching policy framework. The trailblazers program has been a competitive process across the six disciplines within the manufacturing strategic priorities. Adelaide university went in on the defence play and was successful in being selected.

This opens up enormous opportunities, particularly in my home state of South Australia, both because the University of Adelaide is based there and because we are the defence state. We have an enormous, deep defence industry capability within our economy. We also have the very significant commitments that the previous government made around defence acquisition, particularly in maritime, but there is a whole lot more than just shipbuilding happening in the South Australian defence sector, across land and air. Of course, we also have the Australian Space Agency, the headquarters of which the previous government decided to locate in South Australia. We are the home of defence industry and the home of space, with the SmartSat CRC at UniSA, as well. We are leveraging enormous opportunity in those sectors, which are only going to grow dramatically into the future.

The previous speaker talked about the priorities within the National Reconstruction Fund. The really frightening thing is that the space sector has been removed as one of the six priorities. That is absolutely inexplicable. Space, as a standalone opportunity, will be one of the great future growth industries across any significant economic metric—jobs created, investment attracted, innovation and the spin-offs from the space sector, space itself and space technology and what it can do for so many other industries, particularly traditional industries like agriculture, as an example. Earth observation from space can have huge applications in the agricultural sector. To take space away as one of the six priorities for the government's future manufacturing focus is inexplicable, really disappointing and a complete own goal. On most metrics, space should be and could be—and may not be now, thanks to that decision—the fastest-emerging growth sector in our economy, faster than any of the others. This is madness, but it's up to the government, in another debate, to explain why they've gone down that path.

The defence sector is not just about what it is but what it can be. One of the really important things, which was a real focus of our government previously, is the development of sovereign capability. We've always spent a significant amount of money on defence and defence acquisition, but for way too many decades the vast majority of that acquisition spend was on imported defence capability, rather than domestically constructed capability and—more importantly—not just piecing things together within our economy but actually having the sovereign capability to design, construct and hold the intellectual property for defence requirements here within our nation, which is good for our economy but also very important for our national security. We had defence industry sovereign capability as a focus, and that's why I was very excited when the University of Adelaide was selected to be a trailblazer in defence. Coupled with the economic accelerator program, that means that Adelaide university now has the partnerships. They're working with the University of New South Wales as well, I hasten to add. It is, of course, a very significant institution in defence; it operates the Australian Defence Force Academy here in Canberra, amongst its other defence related activity.

Adelaide university is the lead proponent, working with all of their very significant industry partners. That means that, through Trailblazer, they can be undertaking the research and development and capability development and focus. Then, through the Economic Accelerator, they can apply to this program, and this program will provide them with certainty, because of its ongoing nature, which is embedded within the legislation. They will have the capacity to identify and pursue, and, I'm very confident, on a regular basis, secure successful applications to this program. That will mean that—on top of what we're already doing in the defence sector in South Australia, and the things that we're already planning on building locally and the capability that is already known about in my home state—there will be new development and new innovation that we can commercialise for future economic opportunity, beyond what we already intend to do in South Australia and Australia into the future.

We know, of course, that, through the landmark AUKUS agreement, we are entering an unprecedented period of technological collaboration and cooperation with the United States and the United Kingdom—two very sophisticated defence industry and technology economies. Particularly in the case of the United States, it is, understandably, very, very rare for it to partner with non-internal academic and industry partners—those not within the sovereign borders of the United States. One of the regular challenges with defence acquisition is getting the approval to access technology that we might want from the United States government, and AUKUS provides a framework to make that much more expedited, on a regular basis.

There's a specific commitment within it, as we know, to nuclear technology propulsion for submarines. There are a lot of other opportunities within that.

I'll come back now to the Economic Accelerator fund. Adelaide university and their partners, through accessing this fund, will be able to look at partnership opportunities that might be facilitated within AUKUS. They'll be looking for opportunities to develop capability that could have significant opportunities, both economically and from a defence capability point of view, for our own needs and for the needs of significant ally markets like the United States and the United Kingdom, and of course well beyond that.

And that's what this fund will do. It will help us dramatically address one of the really heartbreaking issues in our history of research and development: that of not having, consistently enough, the C—the commercialisation—on the end of the R&D. There have been a lot of great ideas coming from our research institutions where we haven't had the best framework, of not just government but also, frankly, private sector financing of the commercialisation of good ideas that mean that great Australian IP can be turned into great Australian business opportunities that are attracting investment and employing people within our economy.

Whether it's in defence or in the HILT and/or space sectors that I mentioned—those two CRCs—in South Australia, all of our institutions will have opportunities to access this funding, working across all of the significant industries in South Australia—traditional industries, like agriculture and mining, and the great emerging exciting industries, like space, and everything in between. There are really smart people in these institutions and companies who are working in these sectors and have the capability to work on ideas and develop opportunities for businesses. Now, through this fund, they will have a very clear and certain pathway to seek and apply for staged funding that will help them germinate those ideas into really significant commercial opportunities, that, we hope, on a regular basis, will turn into great businesses that are employing people and generating activity in our economy.

So, for those reasons, the coalition—myself included—are very pleased to see the government bring forward our bill and continue with the proposals that we put forward when Prime Minister Morrison announced this last February, in February 2022. So, a year later, we have this bill progressing through the parliament. I'm pleased to support it and I'm excited about the opportunities that it will provide for the Australian economy and, particularly, the very impressive research and development community that we have.

Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very honoured to represent the wonderful, dynamic electorate of Boothby. It is a fantastic place to live for so many reasons. It has wonderful landscapes, it has wonderful industry, it has world-class education, and it has families and a community that are thriving. It also has two world-class universities and a fantastic TAFE. What Boothby is increasingly becoming known for is its advanced innovative industry that is thriving in the heart of the electorate that I represent, and this government knows that; it is why the minister introduced this bill. We want to do everything in our power to make it easier for universities and for industry to translate their cutting-edge research into practical and commercial applications.

As the minister said in introducing this bill, research commercialisation is important. It is important because it means that, as Australians, we get a bigger dividend for our investment in research in this country. That investment powers new technologies that we can develop here in Australia, and I say in Boothby, that can improve production processes, reduce costs, create new products that lead to even greater economic activity and, of course, create secure, well-paid jobs.

As I said, in Boothby we are very fortunate to have two world-class universities. We have the world-renowned Waite Research Institute, which is part of Adelaide University. But I'm going to focus Flinders because of its role at the Tonsley Innovation District. Flinders University has almost 26,000 students, about 7,000 people undertaking PhDs and about 900 academic staff, so that is a lot of very smart people out there not only learning but also creating new information. Flinders has a second site at Tonsley, at the old Mitsubishi site—an old car manufacturer closed down—and Flinders is a key player there.

In Boothby, researchers and industry have already begun to establish partnerships and connections, like the Factory of the Future at Tonsley. During the election campaign, I was thrilled to visit Tonsley to announce a $10 million investment in the Factory of the Future. It is a prime example of using cutting-edge research to work towards important national priorities. The pilot Factory of the Future already in operation at Tonsley is a powerhouse for developing effective collaborations between researchers and industry in South Australia.

Labor governments at federal and state level have worked hard to make sure there are now more people working in the Tonsley Innovation District than there were when Mitsubishi was still making cars there. We want to turbo charge jobs in the state through the establishment of Australia's first industrial-scale advanced manufacturing accelerator facility at Tonsley. Tonsley is also home to many high-tech businesses such as BAE, Tesla, Sage, Red Arc, Micro X and many more. It is a fantastic petri dish of high-tech innovation, with Flinders University right in the middle of it. The new facilities, which include a manufacturing growth accelerator program, will support over 120 small and medium enterprises to test and trial state-of-the-art equipment and skills for potential early adoption, with the opportunity to feed into the supply chain for the growing defence industry in South Australia. Side-by-side with this is the world-class education and training and the use of advanced digital technologies, ensuring we have the workforce we need to be a manufacturing superpower. This will be a model for other states wanting to be at the centre of the advanced manufacturing revolution, and it's the sort of thing that changes brought about by this bill are designed to drive.

This bill does two things. First, it amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to implement measures as part of the former government's university research commercialisation action plan. It takes what was a good idea and puts it into action. Second, the bill amends the Higher Education Support Act to provide legislative authority to establish an Australian Economic Accelerator program. This program—I'll call it the AEA program—is specifically designed to assist higher education providers in developing research to a level of commercial readiness and to support industry led study and postgraduate research programs. Specifically, the AEA program is being established to assist higher education providers to progress the development of new technologies and services to the commercialisation and investor-ready stage through grants.

The bill also provides for a governance framework, including the AEA advisory board and priority managers, to create a research commercialisation strategy and advise the minister on grants. The program will focus on priorities established under the government's National Reconstruction Fund, legislation for which is being established this week. We've already heard that the opposition is going to oppose that.

The purpose of this bill dovetails with that of the National Reconstruction Fund: to make Australia a place where we make things again, a place where we lead the world in advanced technologies—technologies and innovations that drive economic growth and deliver well-paid, secure jobs. The fund and measures like those introduced in this bill which power it will drive investment in projects which will be our collective prosperity. They will broaden our industrial base and boost regional economic development.

Crucially, this bill also allows for the creation of a National Industry PhD Program. The program will provide a basis for new industry led postgraduate programs that create a clear and structured career pathway in innovation and commercialisation focused research. The programs will embed researchers in industry settings, allowing them to build the all-important connections and networks needed to translate their research into commercial and practical solutions. I'm very excited that the internationally recognised Tonsley Innovation District, with Flinders University as the major hub, is fantastically positioned to take advantage of this, with so many exciting, high-tech businesses on their doorstep.

Ultimately, this bill will make it easier for universities and businesses to work together to commercialise the important research that they undertake. It will help us build our sovereign capability and it will boost our economy for the future. I commend the bill.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the government's Higher Education Support Amendment (Australia's Economic Accelerator) Bill 2022. I've previously called for urgent measures to accelerate innovation in Australia, and I believe this bill is a good step in achieving this. I welcome the government's renewed focus on science innovation and creative entrepreneurialism as we seek to strengthen our long-term economic future.

Australia has a rich history of innovation that we really should be proud of. The black box flight recorder, the cochlear implant, the ultrasound scanner, wi-fi—all of these are Australian inventions that have changed the world. Right now, we have an important opportunity to invest in the education of our younger generations, whose ideas and innovations are a major key to ensuring Australia's future in the knowledge and technology spaces. Despite our successes, Australia sits well below where we could be on international rankings of knowledge and technology output. We can do better. That means we must accelerate the talent and ideas of our next generation of innovators. We cannot be content with peaking in the past. Targeted funding through university research grant programs and new incentives for tertiary education providers are welcome steps to enhance opportunities for our next generation of innovators.

More robustly funded research programs mean better equipped graduates. I believe this bill will help propel investment in innovation, which will make Australia more competitive. I'm pleased to see that major interest groups are generally supportive of the additional funding announced as part of the plan. Professor John Shine, President of the Australian Academy of Science, stated that:

Australian universities must be supported to operate across the continuum of basic to applied research and both academics and industry must be incentivised to translate ideas into commercial outcomes.

I concur with Professor Shine. The government has a vital role to play in bridging education with industry.

Whilst this bill is good, I don't believe it's perfect. There are risks, and I do note some concerns regarding some of the plan's policy features. It's imperative that this investment pay off. Australia's Economic Accelerator program needs to bridge education with industry; however, the bill only appears to legislate on one side of the bridge. I feel there is an important opportunity to incentivise industry to engage equitably with the tertiary education sector, should this be needed to further strengthen the Economic Accelerator program.

We also need more incentives to translate research and innovation into start-up businesses and new businesses. Australia only invests some 1.8 per cent of GDP into innovation and research and development. That's just not enough to be competitive in today's world. We need more incentives when it comes to R&D for existing companies to make sure they continually reinvest in their efficiencies and their sustainability and, ultimately, to ensure that they are competitive with the rest of the world.

The Australian Academy of Science also calls for greater detail on the cross-portfolio coordination of this bill. There are over 200 existing research support schemes and programs currently on offer in Australia. I believe that we need a cohesive and consistent approach to research funding, which should be implemented nationally. I feel it's unclear how the new scheme will be integrated alongside the existing programs.

In 2020, funding for basic and applied research and experimental development was concentrated in particular areas such as biomedical and clinical sciences, engineering, health science and biological sciences. All other fields received less than seven per cent of total investment each. That is a really disproportionate allocation of funding. I note that the establishment of an authority—of the Australia's Economic Accelerator advisory board—should, hopefully, ensure more equitable spread of that research funding across key industries.

Whilst this bill gives the minister significant powers to streamline targeted research grants funding to certain courses, I welcome the measured approach of an advisory board and hope the expertise of the appointed group will enhance decision-making that is based on experience and expert insight. I urge the minister to prioritise experience and knowledge in research and commercialisation when considering the appointments to the board.

Whilst the AEA advisory board will advise on which industries are in greatest need for research grants under the program, it's my sincere hope that clean energy and renewable technology industries will benefit from targeted research funding. I firmly believe this is an incredibly vital space for our long-term economic strength and growth. Investment in our transition to renewables and our legislated pursuit of net zero should be accelerated at every opportunity across every sector and every portfolio.

I welcome measured and appropriate reform of existing funding and reward structures in Australian universities and tertiary education providers. Whilst this bill is a strong step towards bridging tertiary education with in-demand industry, it needs to pay off long term, so I hope the government is open to further incentivising industry in the future. I also ask the government to acknowledge the opportunity to direct research funding towards a clean energy economic future. I welcome the increased focus on commercialised research to equip and propel our next generation of innovators into the knowledge and technology space, and I'm excited to see how Australians continue our rich history of innovation.

Finally, while talking about education, I must thank all the educators and schools in Warringah for the wonderful work that they do in nurturing those very smart brains keen for information, in particular in STEM subjects. I'd also like to recognise the amazing leaders that have participated in my electorate of Warringah—the youth ambassadors who for the last four years have participated each year in bringing to me their knowledge, their hope, their feedback, their concerns and anxiety about our future, and their questions about what opportunities they have and what support they will get in careers of choice or innovation and about their tertiary education pathways or TAFE or professional opportunities. My youth ambassadors are the school captains of all the schools in Warringah, and they are such an incredibly motivating bunch. These young people are just so smart and bright. They are caring, and they have an incredible focus on the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow. They want to know more about innovation and tertiary education opportunities, and they want accountability in this place, where we are legislating and really directing what their opportunities are going to be as they grow up. Thank you to them and to the current class, of 2023. I commend this bill to the House.

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia is a smart nation. From polymer bank notes to our role in creating wi-fi, we are a nation of innovators. In my electorate of Swan we have some incredible innovators. The International Day of Women and Girls in Science is on Monday, and in an earlier speech in this place I highlighted some impressive female innovators in Swan, including Dr Shani Higginbottom at Alcoa, who is maximising bauxite recovery. There's Dr Irene Suarez-Martinez and her work as a material scientist but also as a textile artist. We have Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker and her work in the Murchison Widefield Array; Dr Gemma Anderson, who monitors black holes and supernovas; and Dr Lucy Commander, who is known for her outstanding work in seed germination.

There are more impressive women in Swan. There's Lyndsey Teng, a civil engineer who has worked on various rail projects across Western Australia, and Hannah Green, from ChemCentre, who won the Ian Ritchie Achievement Award. Her team works with the WA Police Force to identify chemicals seized in drug labs.

Innovation is in the DNA of Australians, and this is something that we see at the forefront of universities. For me, as one of the few members lucky enough to have a university in their electorate, it's a pleasure to have Curtin University. Curtin has been making strides in commercialising research. For example, Curtin has a cathode-manufacturing pilot plant. This is an example of taking an ingenious home-grown idea, on battery manufacturing, and then turning it into a pilot plant to test the commercialisation. This could become the foundation of a future battery-manufacturing capability in Australia.

We can do innovation here, but there's an issue with commercialisation of research and development. Many people have heard about the valley of death. It's the place between the laboratory bench and the marketplace where countless good ideas go to die. Australia can be at the forefront of innovation and commercialisation, and the Albanese Labor government wants this nation to be a country that both innovates in research and development and also ensures that we commercialise these ideas to keep them here in Australia.

This bill, the Higher Education Support Amendment (Australia's Economic Accelerator) Bill 2022, fits into the government's University Research Commercialisation Action Plan. The bill will allow the minister to make grants to support arrangements to increase industry-led postgraduate research and assist higher education providers to undertake programs of research that will progress the development of technologies and services to a state of commercial investor readiness and that are in sectors aligned with the nation's priorities. This bill provides researchers with the support and funding to bridge the gap between the laboratory bench and the marketplace. Curtin University will benefit from this additional funding support for researchers.

This bill complements the first major policy package to support manufacturing in Australia. This is the biggest one in living memory: the National Reconstruction Fund. Although this bill's measures are smaller in scope and impact than the Albanese Labor government's National Reconstruction Fund plan, it aligns with our priorities to see industry supported by government in cooperation with researchers, universities and workers.

It was disappointing to hear that the opposition is choosing to not support the National Reconstruction Fund, because the parents I speak to in my electorate of Swan would like to see their children obtain future jobs that are well paid and secure. A friend told me a story about his aunty, who was born fully deaf and worked for nearly a decade upholstering car seats in Melbourne at one of the car manufacturers. It was a good, well-paid blue-collar job that gave her a sense of dignity in her work and a sense of belonging. Supporting Australian manufacturing industry is as much about the dollars and cents as it is about creating opportunities for people and developing a sense of dignity in the work that they do.

I support this bill because I see the bigger picture. By supporting researchers and turning their work into something commercially viable we are increasing the sustainability of the research sector. A healthy and sustainable research sector means more jobs for all people, including women in STEM, which is a priority for this government. This support will also mean greater innovation in industry and more things can be invented in Australia and made here. And, if we're making it in Australia, it will mean good, secure, well-playing jobs for our communities.

Curtin University will be instrumental to this process, and to quote Vice-Chancellor Harlene Hayne:

… Curtin University has a leading role to play in helping Australia become a smarter and more innovative country, that leads the world not just in research but in making the most of the commercial opportunities that come from that research.

And, as the saying goes, if there's a will there's a way. In my community there is a willingness among the leadership team and staff at Curtin to be a partner of the federal government in this process. My hope for this legislation is that further commercialised research and industry collaboration at Curtin University will see an ecosystem of innovation that expands job opportunities for my community and adds value to the Western Australian industries.

Our government has brought this bill before the House so soon after our election because of our hopes for the sector and the broader economy. It complements our plans for a national reconstruction fund and aligns with Labor's aspiration to support a world-class research sector. Our decisive action is about giving stakeholders certainty and putting confidence back in the economy.

I am fortunate to have a university in my electorate named after the great Labor man John Curtin because it was a Curtin Labor government that was the last government to pursue such an expansive investment in manufacturing, as we're doing through the National Reconstruction Fund. His vision for Australia's economy after the Second World War was one of full employment, harnessing Australia's ingenuity and establishing our sovereign manufacturing capability. So successful was John Curtin's vision that it became upheld policy of both parties until the 1970s. That vision is something we share, and we would also like to see jobs available for every Australian who wants one.

We would like to have a sense of pride in our nation's products by expanding the presence of the made-in-Australia tag at home and abroad and just when we want to build our sovereign capability and protect our communities during times of crises, such as we saw during the COVID pandemic. And, in the spirit of bipartisanship, I see this bill, created by the previous government, as to be one that should be commended to the House. And although it's smaller in scope compared to other policies of the Curtin or Albanese Labor government, it is a step forward in the advance of our capacity as a nation.

I'd like to conclude by saying that Australia is a smart nation. We are hardworking, intelligent and innovative. I support this bill because my community knows that if we are to diversify our economy we need to support our researchers and universities. I support this because I know that Curtin University, in the heart of Swan, will be supported in commercialising their research. I support this bill because an innovative, commercially viable research sector will be critical in supporting the Albanese Labor government's National Reconstruction Fund. Finally, I support this bill because I believe if we invent it here we should make it here.

Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to support this bill that reintroduces measures introduced by the former coalition government which lapsed at the election and have now been taken up by Labor. It's wonderful to see that bipartisan support on this bill, because it's a bill to amend the Higher Education Support Act to allow the minister to make grants for industry-led postgraduate research. This bill is crucial to assist with the growth of the digital economy. The digital economy is a valuable industry in Australia that creates many high-paid jobs while also driving productivity to many businesses and the economy. It's been estimated that it can deliver $315 billion in gross economic value to our country.

Innovation is vital to continuing the growth of the digital economy. However, it faces funding challenges, especially at the incubation or startup stage. This is a crucial stage in these projects, because many of the projects are risky, and it's a challenge for business to invest capital because there's no guarantee of a return on investment. That's where academic research and universities are so important. The grants will assist higher education providers to undertake research programs which progress the development of technologies and services to a state of commercial investor readiness in areas that align with our national priorities.

When in government, the coalition led a significant piece of work to review investment in research, looking to drive greater benefits for our economy. We have many universities across Australia where students and academics produce foundational work and research. We're up there with the best in the world. The 2022 World Intellectual Property Organization's Global Innovation Index ranked Australia fifth in the world for our human capital and research. Research translation and commercialisation is important. It means we get a bigger return on investment for research conducted in our universities. The previous coalition government found that, while we publish more than 100,000 academic papers, we don't do a lot with that research beyond the exploration stage. On that same global index, we ranked 37th for knowledge and technology outputs. This means that we are not realising the full potential of our university research by seeing it through to commercialisation and seeing our country, the economy and communities benefit. The previous coalition government saw the great potential for our nation in taking university research and giving it a tangible purpose.

Research papers are great and important, but what our country needs is real action that is going to boost our economy and find solutions for the significant challenges that we are facing. Like it has been through history, technology and innovation will be a key driver in helping us as a nation find solutions to these challenges. The coalition did the groundwork to ensure more research is translated into commercial applications, knowing it would meet some of our greatest challenges and pave the way for an improved economy. We did this by investing $2.2 billion into our University Research Commercialisation Package, to highlight Australia's incredible research minds while also boosting our productivity and creating new jobs and new industries. This placed national manufacturing priorities at the core of Australian government funded research and invested in people who were skilled in university-industry collaboration.

The former government invested a further $243 million over five years for the Trailblazer Universities Program to drive commercialisation outcomes with industry. The Trailblazer program was all about delivering research that would support our national manufacturing priorities, which were medical products; food and beverage; recycling and clean energy; resource technology and critical mineral processing; defence industry; and space. These priorities were crucial. As I used to say to my team in the business world, 'If everything matters, nothing matters.' It's so important, with endless opportunities, that you really prioritise what you're going to focus on, whether it's in business or in government. So to have these six priorities really underpinned the programs and the success and opportunities of these programs.

In addition to all these investments, the previous government also invested $1.6 billion over 10 years for Australia's Economic Accelerator—a funding program to help universities with the process of commercialising research. It is this accelerator program that is at the heart of this bill. The Economic Accelerator program is all about supporting research translation and commercialisation within our universities.

It's also important to understand and recognise that these investments in research and development are not just about economic benefits. While these are important and crucial, it's also about the social benefit to individuals, to families and to communities. Think for a second and imagine a world without the cervical cancer vaccine that was created by Professor Ian Frazer in 2006. Imagine a world without the bionic ear, which was created by Graeme Clark at the University of Melbourne. I don't think there is anyone the world over who would argue that those two products, as two examples, are not providing multiple benefits to our society. And that's what technology and innovation can do: deliver economic growth, but also deliver social benefits to our society.

The technological advancements that can be unlocked from university research is, in many ways, beyond our imagination, and that is the real excitement and opportunity afforded by technology. What products will we be talking about in 10 years? None of us in this room or in this house will have even comprehended that. As an example, Professor Michelle Simmons and her team at the University of New South Wales developed the world's first single-atom transistor, a basic data unit in quantum computers back in 2012. This was a huge step in the race to engineer substantially faster, more efficient computers.

These are just a few examples of why it is important to help bridge the gap that I spoke about around research and commercialisation. It's no secret that technology opens new doors and creates new industries. And innovation in technology is the key to increased productivity, which the RBA has said will lead to lower costs, higher profits, and a stronger economy. We have all spoken a lot this week, in particular in this House, about the challenges of cost of living and inflation, and technology will play a key role, in the short term and in the long term, to allow businesses to unlock some of those.

In my first speech, one thing I spoke about was productivity and technology. I referenced farmers and the agricultural benefits of technology, because agriculture is a big part of my community. I also talked about how tradies and builders can spend more time on the tools, which they love, and more time at home with their families because technology allows them to do their admin and invoicing quickly so that they could do that.

I do note that my good friend the member for Flinders is in the room, which is great to see, because just this week Master Builders Australia told us that the seat of Casey is No. 1 in the country for tradies as a percentage of their workforce. So when I spoke about that, I knew that our electorate would be great. And it is great to have the member for Flinders here because the seat of Flinders is No. 2 on that list. Whether it's the amazing wineries in the Yarra Valley, which we also beat the seat of Flinders in, or the number of tradies, it's great to see that Casey is leading the way with tradies. But that's why I spoke about the benefits, because there are so many small businesses, sole traders that can benefit in Casey and Flinders, and across the country, from products that we don't even know exist yet that will come out of programs like this.

To support the new grant opportunities the bill also establishes a new board, the Economic Accelerator advisory board, which is crucial. The board will have eight representatives from government, industry, business and research sectors. It is so important that the board has that breadth of experience because they will be making these crucial decisions. And projects under the Australia's Economic Accelerator program will align with priority areas, which include enabling capabilities in AI, quantum and robotic technology, which is so crucial to our future. We've seen it recently with the introduction of ChatGPT and what can be unleashed in the future with that.

It's often difficult for businesses to invest in technology, so this seed funding through grants from the government is crucial to future economic growth. This is one area where government intervention is required to help businesses innovate and increase productivity. Industry-led programs will create clear and structured pathways, and at the end of the day it is industry, researchers, people, our economy and our communities that will benefit.

Our country desperately needs to improve its economy, particularly by making the most of advancements in technology, in this time of high inflation and low economic growth. It is so important that we help bridge that gap between research and industry so our country can reap the rewards of our own research. It's time we stopped wasting research in academic journals. Instead we should be doing all we can to support the commercialisation of Australian research in order to drive economic growth. That's what this bill aims to achieve, and that's why we are supporting it.

Zoe McKenzie (Flinders, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Higher Education Support Amendment (Australia's Economic Accelerator) Bill 2022, but before I get too into too much detail about the bill I would just like to correct the statements made by the former speaker, the member for Casey. It is true that this year—and this year alone, I expect—the seat of Casey will hold the record for the largest number of tradies. May I say I've been inundated with comments from my electorate suggesting that, if we included landscape gardeners and other trades, we would definitively be the winner. So enjoy it while you have it, Member for Casey. It will not last.

I am pleased to speak in support of this bill to deliver the Australia's Economic Accelerator program, which was indeed introduced by the previous coalition government in February of last year as part of their $2.2 billion University Research Commercialisation Action Plan. Our universities undertake incredibly important and high-quality work in research. As we have heard, the World Intellectual Property Organization's 2022 Global Innovation Index placed Australia fifth in the world for human capital and research. However, on the same Global Innovation Index, we ranked 37th for knowledge and technology outputs. This disparity means that, whilst Australia is proudly recognised as a research powerhouse, much of our early-stage research is frequently not progressed to later stages of development, because of the risk and uncertainty around commercial returns.

The Australia's Economic Accelerator program seeks to bridge this disparity, bringing our output of knowledge and technology in line with the expertise of our research. The AEA program will create a research ecosystem where our world-class research is translated into real-world innovations and productivity gains. This program will operate as a priority driven grant program to support projects aligned with national research priorities and with high commercial opportunity.

To that end, I do wish that the Albanese government maintained this desire to support national research priorities locally by not scrapping funding for projects such as the National Centre for Coasts and Climate at Point Nepean National Park in my electorate of Flinders. This would have been our only higher education footprint in the electorate of Flinders, bringing world-class researchers in coasts and climate to the Mornington Peninsula to undertake their work, in partnership with the University of Melbourne and Monash University. But I digress.

Funding will be available to universities and will require applicants to partner with industry. Grants of between $20,000 and $500,000 are available to fund eligible activity, with matched funding requirements determined on a case-by-case basis. Without government intervention, new innovations and technologies will continue to stall. But the coalition has a proud history in addressing this issue. In 2014, the coalition released the 'Boosting the commercial returns from research' discussion paper, as part of its Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda. This paper cited insufficient knowledge transfer between researchers and business as a key driver of a lack of research commercialisation, arguing that addressing this issue would 'help drive innovation in Australia, grow successful Australian businesses, and boost productivity and Australia's exports, ensuring the competitiveness of the Australian economy into the future'. In 2015, the coalition commissioned the Watt review, which recommended actions similar to those recommended in the 'Boosting the commercial returns from research' paper. In December 2015 the $1.1 billion National Innovation and Science Agenda was launched. For universities, this agenda built on the BCRR paper and the Watt review and included changes to research funding arrangements for all universities.

During the unstable and unpredictable period of 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the coalition maintained its focus on research collaboration and commercialisation, introducing a one-off increase to research support program funding. In February 2022 the former coalition government announced a university research commercialisation action plan. My dear friend and indeed the chair of the expert panel which provided input into the $5.8 million scoping project to accelerate university research translation, Mr Jeff Connolly, said that significant reforms were needed to improve Australia's commercialisation woes. At the time, Mr Connolly said:

It was very quickly apparent that a single program was not the solution to this issue and that a more strategic and systemic approach was required. The result is the broad-ranging reforms outlined in this Action Plan.

…   …   …

This Action Plan commits the Australian Government to shifting the dial to place more emphasis on the translation and commercialisation of research.

That plan outlined key initiatives to reform Australia's research commercialisation landscape across four key areas: placing national manufacturing priorities at the core of Australian government funded research; priority-driven schemes to ramp up commercialisation activity; university research funding reform to strengthen incentives for genuine collaboration with industry; and investing in people who are skilled in university-industry collaboration.

The mechanisms to drive these reforms would be: $243 million over five years for the Trailblazer Universities Program to boost prioritised R&D and drive commercialisation outcomes with industry partners; $1.6 billion over 10 years for Australia's Economic Accelerator, a new stage-gated competitive funding program to help university projects bridge the so-called valley of death and the road to commercialisation; and a $150 million capital injection to expand the CSIRO Main Sequence Ventures program, which backs startup companies and helps create commercial opportunities from Australian research. There would be $296 million to be invested in 1,800 industry PhDs and over 800 in fellows over 10 years. And the creation of a new IP framework for universities would support greater university-industry collaboration and the uptake of research outputs.

This plan was widely supported at the time by stakeholders including the Business Council, Universities Australia, Group of Eight, the IRU, the ATN and Mining Australia. Ensuring that our university and higher education providers' research is better translated into commercial opportunities is critically important going forward, and I am pleased that this government is continuing the work of the previous government on this matter.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Eight months in, and I'm glad to see that the Labor Party are still running with the previous coalition government's policies—and why wouldn't they? The coalition delivered record funding and historic reform to higher education and further education. In government, we undertook a significant piece of work to review the government's investment in research to drive greater benefits for our economy. What we discovered was, whilst we undertook world-leading research and published more than 100,000 academic papers, as a nation we often don't do a lot with that research beyond the initial exploration. So, when in government, we consulted industry, we came up with a plan and we took action, because that's what Australians expect of their governments.

Our $2.2 billion University Research Commercialisation Package was—and, as turns out, remains—focused on boosting Australia's economy and our productivity. We wanted to see those core manufacturing priorities backed by quality university research, in addition to the $1½ billion we invested through the Modern Manufacturing program. These priority areas were those we had identified as areas where Australia had significant comparative advantage and a strategic national interest. Those areas were (1) medical products, (2) food and beverage, (3) recycling and clean energy, (4) resources technology and critical minerals processing, (5) defence industry and (6) space. I'm pleased to say that the Sunshine Coast—and I know this will come as no surprise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker Sharkie—is playing a very large role in many, if not most, of those areas, but particularly in the manufacturing of medical products, and food and beverage, and, after many years of my own advocacy, in the defence space as well. That's defence, not necessarily space, which is the sixth one. I'm just seeing if you are keeping up!

We also wanted to ramp up commercialisation activity at universities beyond the big cities. We wanted to see genuine and purposeful collaboration between universities and industry, and we wanted to back innovators and scholars who could deliver on those projects. We began by funding the $243 million Trailblazer Universities Program to boost research and development. This saw universities like the University of Southern Queensland, in regional Queensland, take a lead in Australia's space industry research and commercialisation. We injected $150 million into the CSIRO Main Sequence Ventures program to back start-ups engaged in commercial research, and we put $296 million on the table to fund 1,800 industry PhDs and 800 fellowships over a decade. That is a very significant investment into individual research projects.

We made a plan, and we acted, because we believe in Australia's researchers and Australia's research potential. But research without consequence is not bang for buck when it comes to federal government funding. I want to remind this government that the money in their budget is taxpayers' money. It belongs to the Australian people, whose good faith keeps us here and decides who will govern this country for the benefit of all Australians. The Australian people expect that their money is invested in research which will improve their lives, research which can be translated into something meaningful—research which can be commercialised. That's why our University Research Commercialisation package included $1.6 billion for a decade-long investment into Australia's Economic Accelerator, a staged and competitive funding program to support universities to do just that. This bill will support small businesses and local manufacturers on the Sunshine Coast and across Australia, who will benefit from the commercialisation of research.

It's vital that we invest in new-to-industry innovations and that we invest in our regional communities. I know, Madam Deputy Speaker Sharkie, that is a topic and issue which is very near and dear to your heart. I think of the one-minute COVID test, which was made possible thanks to both an advancing commercialisation manufacturing grant and the research capacity of the University of Utah. It was the first product of its kind made here in Australia, employing advanced technologies and methods drawn from cutting-edge sciences like quantum biology and the Internet of Things. With this investment, domestic universities will be able to offer a similar level of research capability in emerging fields, meaning that innovators will look to Australia first. This bill will help us stem the drain of private investment into research by backing in our research institutions as they enter the unknown in some of our most cutting-edge industries. I think of the Turbine project developed by the Food and Agribusiness Network, which both the member for Fairfax and I supported for many years. This project, based at the Sunshine Coast Airport and funded by the coalition government, will see the Sunshine Coast become a launch pad for primary producers and manufacturers to export their goods across the nation and indeed around the world.

Both these projects are platforms and products born on the Sunshine Coast which have the potential to transform the local economy and global industry. I think it's important to note that these were not ideas cooked up in the CBDs of Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne or even here in Canberra. These were created in regional Australia by regional Australian innovators. With the support of the federal government, they've been able to translate their ideas into marketable and market-supporting products and services.

To that end, I'm particularly keen to see regional universities afforded their fair share of investment under this package. I welcome the Minister for Education, who has, clearly, noted the content of my speech and come into this chamber to listen to it, and a very good thing it is, too! I also want to see regional universities and regional industry represented at the decision-making table. Regional universities play a crucial role in supporting and delivering regional economic development strategies and in uplifting the economy, community and livability in these regions. University research can play a particularly significant role in boosting the efficiency and resilience of primary producers in addition to the resources, healthcare and regional tourism sectors.

In my own patch I'm very proud to say that the University of the Sunshine Coast is doing just that. Fisheries are thriving in regional communities, with rural localities relying on primary industries like agriculture and fisheries which are engaged in our retail, tourism and professional services sectors. These are the areas on which the University of the Sunshine Coast is having a remarkable impact. Since 2016 alone UniSC has delivered nearly $25 million worth of international agriculture research into forest biosecurity, sustainable fisheries and building supply chain resilience for fruitgrowers, pearl miners and seaweed exporters. Queensland great Professor Peter Timms has led world-leading research into vaccine development, most notably for the protection of our endangered koalas from the problems that they have with chlamydia. The university's work in mapping our local emerging innovation ecosystem to guide what some are calling the 'silicon coast' has led the Sunshine Coast to successful efforts in being named a smart city both at home and abroad.

As the education minister is here and because he's relatively new to the job and he may not have heard of the Thompson Institute on the Sunshine Coast, I'll take the opportunity to talk about the institute. It's attached to the University of the Sunshine Coast and was funded by the previous government to the tune of $20 million to provide research funding for things like post-traumatic stress disorder. They're building the first research facility in the country dedicated to PTSD, and Thompson Institute have been doing some amazing work in neuroscience research. We know that we're suffering from the scourge of mental health problems in this country, and, rather than just loading people up with drugs, Professor Jim Lagopoulos is doing groundbreaking research work. We funded a particular type of MRI machine for the Thompson Institute so that they can take images of the brain and look in detail at how drugs impact on people who suffer from various mental illnesses. It is groundbreaking research, and I take this opportunity to remind the education minister about the great work that Thompson Institute does because it's not only a research facility but also a teaching facility.

The function and governance of the program I'm talking about is not just about a pool of funds to be dished out willy-nilly. From the initial proof of concept through the difficult period of trial and testing to commercial realisation, universities will be evaluated and supported. This is about attracting projects with high commercialisation potential, projects that are scalable and ready to progress. It's not about theoretical and philosophical propositions; it's about tangible and practical outcomes for the market and the Australian community. Strict governance and industry engagement will see this funding invested where it will reap the best dividends. This includes an advisory board that draws upon the collective experience of industry, government and both the university and corporate sectors. The work of the board and the program outcomes will be distilled into an annual report provided to the parliament and presented by the minister. I note that the report will look at the regulatory, financial and cultural barriers that exist for commercialising our research and propose opportunities to address these barriers.

I call on the federal government and the advisory board—and, as the minister is in the chamber, I reiterate this point—to ensure that geographical barriers and disparities affecting regional Australian universities are considered and represented in decision-making. This is about giving regional unis, regional industries and regional academics a fair go. We don't want to see all of these funds go to the major universities in our largest cities.

It's also about providing clarity, structure and certainty to newly created research opportunities and pathways. This includes embedding researchers in industry settings and engaging industry and businesses more comprehensively in the process of research and in research outputs. It looks like companies hosting PhD students and postgraduate researchers, a model which will provide benefits to industry, individuals and the institution itself. This kind of approach will boost researcher employability beyond academia and will equip universities with the knowledge and platform to foster employment, work experience and financial partnership opportunities. In other words, the program provides a chance for meaningful collaboration across sectors and allows universities to back in highly skilled workforces in critical sectors.

I'm also pleased to see a new suite of Australian Research Council fellowships to acknowledge and reward our academics who collaborate with industry to drive the translation and commercialisation of their research into products, services and employment outcomes. This is about building career pathways in innovation for scholars and graduates, and it is about turbocharging Australia's research commercialisation capabilities at regional and global levels. I look forward to a whole new cohort of ARC fellows from UniSC and regional universities across the country tackling a variety of issues across those industries and others.

As I said from the outset, I support this bill because it's a good bill, and it's a good bill because it's a coalition bill. Once again, the Labor government has little plan for research commercialisation so they've taken ours, but I'm not complaining. It just shows once again that the coalition is on the side of small businesses, manufacturers and regional universities. The coalition is on the side of Australians who want to have a go. We are the party of the pioneer Australians. We are the party of the Australian dream, of the hard worker, the innovator and the changemaker. We are the party of regional Australians, and I'm proud to speak on their behalf today.

Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Minister, for being here. I wasn't expecting you to be here. I'm the last person on a list.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You came for me.

Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I did. You don't need to hear talking points, so I'll just use this opportunity to talk to you, if that's alright?

I've been very impressed with you as a minister. Through the election, I thought you did very well, and I thought you spoke very sincerely today in the parliament. Leaving the politics of blame that you spoke about at the end aside, the statistics you read out were highly alarming. I, too, and many of my colleagues on this side are worried about widening inequality. Economics and education matter. It matters not just for this generation but it cascades down through the decades for Australia. I'm worried that in decades to come we will say to children your fate in life will be whether your parents own your house, whether both parents are together, whether you went to a private school. All of these things add up, where we risk becoming a more divided society. I wasn't born here. My parents left Ireland. They were economic refugees, neither of whom finished high school. The thing they looked for in another country was opportunity and equality of opportunity, where it didn't matter that your parents didn't finish high school but your children might have a better future. People talk about the United States being the land of opportunity, but I always think that this place does it much better than they do. They talk about it, but we practice it. But that's a fragile thing, and it's at great risk. So I congratulate you for raising that. You'll always have my support for meaningful engagement in that area, particularly when we hear the horror stories from COVID. Teachers will tell me that some parents would sit and enforce students in Victoria, where we had more lockdowns, being in front of the laptop, but many didn't. Often that wasn't their fault—they were working, doing the Uber Eats deliveries or working in hospitals or doing the shifts were they were essential workers and there was no grandparent or someone else to do it. But those kids fell behind, and how do you make that up? So you've got our full support in that. I also want to congratulate you. I got your letter about nominating a teacher for an Order of Australia medal. It is often too easy to forget certain areas and it was disturbing to see that only one teacher was nominated. I will certainly send that out to my school principals and I hope some nominations do come from that because I have met so many who are worthy. I hope the honours and awards committee get flooded with teacher nominations.

To the substance of this bill, obviously it has bipartisan support. It was initiated by the previous government. When my parents told me, 'Make the most of my education, take it for as long as you can ride it and get the most out of it,' I sort of got on this treadmill where you try and out compete your fellow students by getting into a particular university or school. The test of that was to go to an overseas university. I did that. It was one of those curtains that I peeled back and I felt a bit silly but it made me realise how good our universities are. It was a prestigious university and it looked nice on my CV but it was no different than a prestigious watch—it was just a brand and they are very good at branding. Australian universities are excellent, but one of the things those prestigious universities overseas do is leverage their connections with industry much better than we do. That doesn't just feed into the economy but it makes those universities and all of the tech sectors and other areas around them much more useful to the national mission and the national economy.

As a Victorian, one of the greatest exports we have is education. It is a huge sector of our economy. I'm proud to say that the seat that I represent is named after Robert Menzies. His great passion, other than home and parliament, was education. He was the chancellor of Melbourne University. He could have done many things after politics but that is where he devoted his energies. It is a core value for the Liberal Party, it was a core value for Robert Menzies and it certainly is for me. It doesn't come without risk—wherever there is public money—and we are taking some risk. We should continue to monitor that, and I'm sure that will be done by the department, but there is also a role for the parliament, and we will come back to it again and see how it is going. This is a worthy bill. Thank you for pursuing it. You are welcome in the electorate of Menzies at any time, so thank you.

Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Menzies for his very thoughtful contribution to the debate.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will start by thanking the member for Menzies for his very kind comments in contributing to this debate. There is often not enough kindness in this place. This might be a case of a mutual admiration society. Don't lose it is what I would say. I have been in this place now for 15 years. There's a lot of good people sitting around the chamber, not all on one side of the chamber. The member for Gippsland and I are good friends who collaborate on many things, including some things we are going to do next week to raise awareness about the risk of skin cancer. But, member for Menzies, I hope you don't mind me saying publicly what I have said privately, that I very much admired the comments you made on a difficult night, on election night for the Victorian elections last year. I thought to myself, 'Now there is a member of parliament to admire.' I very much look forward to seeing your contribution to this place and the work you do to represent the people of Menzies, including some of my family in Victoria.

I feel very much like the dog that caught the car, because it really is an enormous privilege to be the Minister for Education. I know, through my own life, as someone who was the first in my family to go to university, the first in my family to finish high school, the first in my family to finish year 10—my mum didn't even go to high school—what the power of education is. We are a different country today from the country that existed when my mum and dad grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney in the 1950s and 1960s. They grew up never expecting to finish school, let alone go to university. Back then, only about two or three per cent of young Aussies would have a university degree. Today it's almost 50 per cent—so different. The days of universities just being an enclave for elites, or this exclusive club where very few people get to go, are gone. But we still have challenges here.

While 40-odd per cent of Australians have a uni degree, it's only 20 per cent from the bush and it's only 20 per cent from my electorate. It's about seven per cent for Indigenous Australians. It's the same with preschools; it's the same with school. If you're born from a poor family or from regional Australia or are an Indigenous Australian, you're less likely to go to preschool, you're less likely to finish school and you're less likely to get a university degree.

It's not just an issue of fairness here for the individual; it's the consequences that has for us as a nation, because, as you rightly point out, there are intergenerational impacts. In a world like the one we live in, where most of the jobs that people will go into when they finish school require a TAFE qualification or a university qualification, if you don't finish school you're already disadvantaged. For communities like mine—and, I'm sure, others represented here—there is the risk that you further entrench disadvantage.

So what we do here collectively—not just what I do in my job but what we do as a nation and what state education ministers and state governments do, because they do a lot of the heavy lifting here—has an enormous impact on the world that we become. Think about that. Fifty years ago, three per cent had a uni degree; today it's about 45 per cent. That's nation-changing stuff, and I don't want us to be a country where in 10 or 20 years time we still have to accept the fact that your chances in life depend on who your parents are, how wealthy they are, what suburb you live in, what part of the country you live in or the colour of your skin. We are today.

Just for the information of colleagues—because I know you're interested in this—there are three big pieces of work that I've kicked off for this year. One is the Universities Accord, which is the first big review of higher education in 15 years, and that's started its work; there's the work I touched on in the parliament in question time today, which is the development of the next National School Reform Agreement; and then there's a big piece of work that will kick off soon, which the Productivity Commission will do, on what a new early education system might look like. I want you to think about a common thread that can run through all of those. That common thread is about how we change the problem that I just described, where your chances in life depend on how wealthy your parents are or where you live or the colour of your skin. If we can fix that with those big reviews that take place this year, then we'll have done some good. This legislation does some good too. I know colleagues have mentioned that it was initiated by the former government. That is absolutely right. This is a great example, I think, of the two parties working together. It's also a good example of government and universities working together as well and, most importantly, it's a good example of universities and businesses working together.

Our universities are fantastic. They punch above their weight when it comes to research. We probably don't do as well as we could when it comes to translating that and commercialising that research, and that's the endeavour we embark upon here today. Just as the minister thanked me for our support in bringing this back to the parliament, I want to thank him for the work that he did as minister in bringing this forward too. There are things we're going to disagree on in education, just as there are going to be things in every part of what is competitive democratic politics. But I think it's great that here's an area where we've got agreement. I'm very glad that I can stand here today and commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.