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

The questions that have been asked by Senator Abetz are easily refuted. Yes, we will be providing advice on capped and uncapped parts of the scheme, and we have indicated that on many occasions. The government have already increased the level of transparency from your administration of the scheme in our administration of the scheme. We have required even higher levels of disclosure under the new scheme. So the ratcheting up of transparency has occurred under this government, not under yours, Senator. Not once did your government provide the level of disclosure that this government has provided. This bill will make more information available on the operation of the Automotive Transformation Scheme.

Senator, you asked me in what other areas we make payments to companies without disclosing them. The R&D tax concession scheme that we run—which, if I recall correctly, something like 6,800 individual firms are registered with—is governed by a piece of legislation which prohibits revealing the detail of assistance, because R&D spending is a sensitive market issue. If I recall rightly, that legislation was actually dealt with under your government and you never amended it, you never sought to change it. It is a specific provision that I am prevented from disclosing support for companies in terms of R&D arrangements.

In regard to the question of the Senate standing orders, what I think you have failed to appreciate, Senator, is the difference between a competitive grants scheme, which we have disclosed and on which we have provided much greater detail than you ever did, and an entitlements based scheme. I put to you, Senator, the analogy of unemployment benefits. Why don’t we provide a full list of payments to the unemployed in this country, individual by individual? Under your interpretation, that is what you would expect me to do. We do not do that, and the Senate standing orders do not require us to do that. The Senate standing orders refer to the payments made as part of the grants arrangements of the government. We are providing payments to the automotive industry. It is an entitlements based payment scheme. By requiring me to reveal that information, Senator, you are requiring me to reveal the business plans of individual companies, to give up genuine commercial secrets that ought to be confidential. It would seem to me that the new Liberal Party does not believe that there is such a thing as a commercial-in-confidence transaction. It seems to take the view that there is no such thing as a genuine commercial secret. That is a perverse view of the way in which market systems operate.