Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Hansard source

And in sequence. Let me begin by saying what I will be saying tomorrow at the Press Club—come along if you like—and that is that science is central to shaping Australia's economic future. This is a time of great change in the global economy. We need to respond to that change, Senator Smith, so that all of our industries can stay competitive. And by investing in scientific research and development, we can not only respond to change but we can also create change to our own benefit. All types of research, from basic to applied, are vital for scientific advances and for generating economic benefits. We believe in investing in fundamental science as well as applied research. It is very important for us to understand that while you do not get a short-term payback from fundamental research, often the biggest long-term advances have come from investing in fundamental research. So for us, both basic and applied research are priorities.

Recently, Innovation and Science Australia released a performance review of our innovation, science and research system. It points not only to some continuing problems we have to tackle but also to a number of strengths. The review found that as a nation we are good at coming up with clever ideas. We punch above our weight internationally when it comes to creating knowledge, but we need to work more on turning those ideas into a reality. We need to be commercialising more of our own great research here in Australia, creating jobs at home and creating Australian companies and maintaining their headquarters in Australia—a bit like what has happened with Atlassian, a great Australian example of this—and use that as an example to other parts of our economy. We need to improve on translating those ideas into real world products, building stronger links between science and industry.