Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

The budget that was delivered on 13 May included the abolition of the Commercial Ready program. The program was closed effectively as of 28 April. What the government has indicated is that current grants that have already been approved will of course be paid and be honoured. There will also be the retention of the regional Commercial Ready offices. However, the decision has seen a savings to the budget of some $547 million over four years. The Commercial Ready funding of $160 million over three years has been offset against the Clean Business Australia program. The total saving as to Commercial Ready in the budget papers therefore needs to be measured against the new programs that the government has initiated.

The government, as I say, will continue to meet its ongoing contractual obligations, so claims to the contrary are simply untrue. What needs to be appreciated is that there will be a number of new programs which the government is initiating, such as Enterprise Connect, a $251 million network which is a key part of the government’s innovation policy. It is designed to ensure that small and medium sized businesses have greater access to new ideas, new knowledge and new technologies that they are not currently accessing. Of course, business will be able to apply this knowledge and these new technologies to build their internal capacity, which will help them to become more innovative, more efficient and more competitive and to lift their productivity right across Australia. There are a number of other programs that the government has initiated, but it should not be forgotten that existing support for venture capital, through the IF funds in supporting early-stage developments, cannot be overlooked in this context nor can the existing programs that are operating, such as the Commercialising Emerging Technologies program, the COMET program.

The COMET program is a competitive, merit-based program that supports early growth and spin-off companies to successfully commercialise their innovations, so the claims that are being made by the opposition need to be measured against the facts. They need to be measured against what the government is actually doing as distinct from what the opposition would like to believe that it is doing. The Comet program is $170 million program which runs to 2011. What you have here is a series of measures that the government is initiating. In fact, the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research have the better part of a billion dollars worth of new programs, ranging from commercialisation initiatives through to research training and research infrastructure. Of course, this is a part of the agenda that the opposition has enormous difficulty coming to grips with because it failed to grasp the breadth of the government’s approach. I think finally we need to draw to the—