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

The proposed competitive innovation grants program, recommended by Dr Cutler and his review panel, is different from the former Commercial Ready program. The panel identified a gap in assistance for innovative small and medium sized enterprises with limited access to capital in the high-risk proof of concept and development stages of projects. If such firms do not have the necessary capital to test new concepts, they would not be able to use the tax credit arrangements that are being proposed in other parts of Dr Cutler’s report, nor for that matter the existing arrangements—and, of course, they would need to spend a lot more money than they currently spend to achieve that outcome. So the associated high risk of investment means that third-party investors are very unlikely to assist such firms. The proposed competitive innovation grants program targets support to national priorities— (Time expired)