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

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Amendment Bill 2017 makes minor but important amendments to the ANSTO governing legislation, the ANSTO Act. The amendments will allow our national nuclear science agency the flexibility to successfully establish an innovation precinct adjacent to its Lucas Heights campus in southern Sydney and will allow ANSTO to potentially establish additional precincts in association with its other campuses. More broadly, the bill will facilitate enhanced collaboration between industry, universities and researchers and ANSTO across all its sites.

Importantly, the amendments will only empower ANSTO to make available its expertise and equipment or lease its land and facilities to parties that have a science, innovation, high-tech-manufacturing or technology-development focus and related amenities, and not for unrelated general retail, office or residential purposes. This is not about some sort of lateral jump into property development or anything else. This is very much about activities which are complementary to and consistent with the charter of ANSTO.

No additional powers have been granted under this bill with regard to defence and national security; that is a furphy. There was a 2006 enactment which addressed the threat of dirty bombs, which is a separate matter.

The other point I would make is: if you're asking about the sorts of companies which will be permitted by the bill to co-locate with ANSTO, they could include advanced manufacturing companies—such as robotic development companies or high-end medical manufacturing companies—technology development companies and engineering companies. Currently, such companies may only co-locate with ANSTO for the period of time that they're directly working with ANSTO.

The proposed ANSTO innovation precinct will co-locate and crowd in scientific partners, knowledge-intensive businesses, high-tech industry, and science, technology, engineering and maths or STEM graduates and medicine graduates around Australia's centre of nuclear capabilities and expertise. Close synergies and collaboration between our publicly-funded research agencies, such as ANSTO, our Australian universities and businesses and industry are a national priority. They are the key to driving Australian innovation. And geography does matter for some innovation. Precincts can facilitate the sorts of collaborative relationships Australia needs if it's to innovate and grow. As a parliament, we want to remove any impediment that may restrict or discourage these relationships. This bill does just that. Physical proximity can be very important in these things, and I have a group at the moment looking at the university precinct strategy to see how we maximise the prospects of being able to use our universities as hubs when it comes to building this sort of academic, industry and research organisation collaboration.

ANSTO already contributes so much to the Australian community. On average, one in two Australians will benefit from the lifesaving nuclear medicine produced by ANSTO. ANSTO's landmark and national research infrastructure, including the OPAL research reactor, the Australian Synchrotron and the Australian Centre for Accelerator Science, are a crucial part of our scientific, social and economic base. They enable scientists to tackle some of the most pressing challenges, in areas as diverse as human health and the environment and solving complex problems for industry. Critically, they maintain a home-grown, highly skilled workforce and help sustain Australia's competitiveness and global relevance.

One of the parts of this I'm particularly gratified about is that the intentions are to have not only a technology park but also a graduate institute and to have the first nuclear science and technology incubator in the world. These are big things, and we can do them because we've got world-class facilities like these. I reject the idea that there is any other purpose to this than promoting Australian science and innovation at the highest levels. I reject some of the claims that have been made by the Greens and others in this regard. There is much prejudice in this debate. People bring ideological blinkers to these debates. I believe in evidence based policymaking. I believe that what ANSTO is doing is good, within the remit it's been given. This bill will allow it to do other good things in association with Australian companies, Australian students and other researchers, as time goes on. The adoption of this bill will allow ANSTO to deepen its impact and reach for the benefit of Australian innovation, education, business and industry. There are no direct financial implications from this bill. As I said before, this is about the powers of ANSTO; it clarifies the powers of ANSTO to do all of this. I commend the bill to the Senate.