Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—For the benefit of senators, I advise that a revised amendment, item (2) on sheet 1965, has just been circulated. I move revised amendments (2) and (3) on sheet 1937, revised 2, together:

(2) Schedule 1, item 25, page 14 (after line 23), at the end of section 128B-25, add:

(5) Without limiting the matters that may be included in the STARTUP-HELP Guidelines made for the purposes of paragraph (2)(c), those guidelines must require that the higher education provider providing the *accelerator program course has arrangements in place to ensure that, in circumstances where a student creates intellectual property through undertaking the course, the student owns the intellectual property unless there is an agreement that provides otherwise in place between the student and the provider.

(3) Schedule 1, item 25, page 16 (after line 28), at the end of Division 128B, add:

128B-40 Allocation of STARTUP-HELP assistance

(1) The STARTUP-HELP Guidelines must include principles and procedures for ensuring, so far as reasonably practicable, that at least 25% of the persons selected for receipt of *STARTUP-HELP assistance are students enrolled in an *accelerator program course at a regional university.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), a regional university is one of the following:

(a) Charles Sturt University;

(b) Central Queensland University;

(c) Federation University Australia;

(d) Southern Cross University;

(e) University of New England;

(f) University of Southern Queensland;

(g) University of the Sunshine Coast;

(h) any other university, or particular campus of a university, specified in the STARTUP-HELP Guidelines.

(3) The Minister must not specify a university, or particular campus of a university, in the START-UP HELP Guidelines made for the purposes of paragraph (2)(h), unless the university or campus is located in a Remoteness Area categorised under the *ABS Remoteness Structure as Inner Regional Australia, Outer Regional Australia, Remote Australia or Very Remote Australia.

Regarding the rationale for moving items (2) and (3) together, item (2) on sheet 1937 relates to the STARTUP-HELP Guidelines requiring that the intellectual property rights of students be protected. Whatever is in or out of the guidelines—and we haven't had an opportunity to even read them because they've just been tabled and we don't know whether they're any different to the guidelines we received last week—the opposition is profoundly concerned that the bill does not include a provision which protects students' intellectual property. If students are going to do an accelerator or incubator course and they've got great ideas, they've got great innovations, they want to start a new business, it's very important that students know that their ideas are protected. So we think this is a very important amendment to make sure—standing up for students first—that their intellectual property is protected.

Item (3) also addresses another defect in the bill, and that relates to regional students doing an accelerator course at a regional university. I do respectfully disagree with Senator Faruqi, as she characterised the feedback and submissions we'd received in the Senate inquiry. There was deep concern expressed by a number of the regional universities that if a regional university did not have an existing accelerator course it was going to be very difficult under the current structure, given the funding model, to develop an accelerator course. We want to make sure that regional students and regional universities get every possible opportunity. So this amendment makes it clear that, as far as reasonably practical, at least 25 per cent of the persons selected for receipt of a startup HELP assistance are students enrolled in an accelerator program course at a regional university.

Too often, we've seen the government not properly consider the needs of regional Australia. Too often, we have been concerned that sometimes, in many different ways, the needs of people living in regional Australia— (Time expired)