Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have just heard a wonderful speech from a wonderful senator. I am sure that the Senate will be the poorer for Senator Ellison’s retirement, and I hope that I will have the opportunity to say some more about him later on this afternoon.

It has been a year since the Rudd Labor government were sworn into office, which provides an opportunity to reflect on their stewardship of the innovation, industry, science and research portfolio. Before the election, Senator Carr spent endless speeches hectoring and lecturing about how the former coalition government had supposedly run down Australia’s manufacturing and innovation sectors and how the coalition had supposedly neglected science and research, despite the most recent ABS figures showing that R&D as a percentage of GDP reached an all-time high of over two per cent in the last year of the coalition government. And I remind the Senate that, up until April 2006, the coalition government was busy paying off the $96 billion debt that was left to us as Labor’s legacy.

Up until the last election, Labor claimed that they would fix it all. Labor promised to support Australia’s manufacturing sector, Labor promised to revitalise the CSIRO and Labor promised to build an innovation economy by streamlining the Commercial Ready program, that very highly popular Howard government initiative. But not only have Labor failed to deliver; Labor have actually taken Australia backwards in all of these areas.

If the sector was ‘neglected’ under the coalition, then it is positively being attacked by Rudd Labor. Apart from establishing review after review, Labor have viciously attacked the sector on which our future wealth and prosperity as a nation are so dependent. Despite the need for stimulus in this year’s budget, science and research suffered cuts as a total percentage of Australian government outlays on R&D. What this year’s budget showed was that if ever the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Mr Tanner, needed a doormat he had one in Senator Carr. While every other minister apparently fought tooth and nail for their portfolio programs, Senator Carr rolled over like a lapdog seeking a tummy rub. The end result—$63 million cut out of our premier research institution, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an organisation which Senator Carr had promised to revitalise. This is now seeing cuts to personnel, scientists being laid off and facilities being closed. We saw in this year’s budget more than $12 million being stripped from the budget of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, all because it has the word ‘nuclear’ in its title. We also witnessed $707 million for innovation in the Commercial Ready program being axed. So in the very first Rudd budget innovation, science and research saw its share of the budget slashed by $782 million.

Before the election not only had Labor promised to retain Commercial Ready; they had promised to streamline it because they wanted to make it easier for people to apply for and get funding. I can say one thing: Labor certainly did streamline the paperwork. They got rid of any need for paperwork because they abolished the scheme. Yet Mr Rudd and Labor continue to go around the community falsely saying that they have kept all their election promises. I invite those journalists that repeat that line, and also those Australians that actually believe that to be the case, to visit the CSIRO, to visit ANSTO and also to talk to our innovators and ask them about the Commercial Ready program, because they do not believe the mantra that Rudd Labor have kept their election promises.

Not satisfied with trampling all over Senator Carr in dismantling Commercial Ready, Minister Tanner actually boasted—can you believe this?—at a post-budget breakfast that the axing of Commercial Ready was his ‘proudest achievement in the budget’. Can anyone believe the stupidity and shortsightedness of making such a decision, let alone wanting to brag about it?

There is an old saying in politics: when you are knee deep in a hole, don’t keep on digging. But Senator Carr, not able to help himself, kept digging. When asked in this place how the abolition of Commercial Ready helped Australia’s innovation economy, Senator Carr’s answer was, ‘We’re not in the business of funding millionaires.’ What an appalling statement from a person who pretends to be a supporter of innovation in this country. Senator Carr knows, as I do, that most of the recipients of Commercial Ready were not millionaires at all; they were young inventors struggling to get a break as to their innovation and seeking to take it to market.

They were people like Jimmy Servaii, whom I recently visited in Sydney. He has a new sugar substitute for use in chocolate which promises chocolate with 40 per cent less sugar—great business innovation with a huge potential for health benefits, so a real win. But Jimmy’s hope of support through Commercial Ready has now evaporated, thanks to Labor, just like that of others. Take the dozens of possible medical cures that will no longer come to fruition or the company with a new road safety device whose executives were told, the day before the budget, they had a Commercial Ready grant, only to read the next night that the program had been axed along with their grant—and the list goes on.

But there was one company that benefited from a significant grant from the minister, albeit it was not out of Commercial Ready. It was Toyota, the world’s most profitable general car manufacturer. Remember Senator Carr rushing to Japan just so he could be in a $35 million money shot with the Prime Minister in Japan? We were told this $35 million was essential for Toyota to manufacture—in fact, we now know it will only be assembling—the hybrid Camry in Australia. It all sounded very nice until we realised it would not actually be manufactured here in Australia, rather just assembled. Not only will the engine be fully imported from Japan but, at the same time as the Australian taxpayer is paying this money for 10-year-old technology, Toyota is planning to build generation 2 plug-in lithium ion battery hybrids in the rest of the world. It turns out that this money came from the green car fund. Holden and Ford were never made aware that this money was going to be made available. You may well ask: what else could you do to make things worse in the Industry portfolio? Well, you have got the luxury car tax hurting Australian car manufacturers. You have currently got Australian car dealers needing finance and support, a situation which was made so much worse by the bungled bank guarantee legislation.

The real low point was when I asked Senator Carr in this place about the impact of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme on Australian industry—that rushed, ill-considered and flawed ETS. What was his response? ‘I am not the responsible minister.’ Well, he is the minister for industry. While others organise roundtables with affected business, Senator Carr adopts the Senator Wong approach of see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. So we have the bizarre situation that, when I ask questions about Nyrstar, for example, for my home state of Tasmania, the minister does not make a peep in response, not one. He was not even invited to Senator Wong and Mr Kerr’s Labor Party strategy meeting on how to tackle the issue—so insignificant is his role, so out of the loop and so irrelevant, even in his own party.

Virtually every government department is acknowledged in the credits of the Treasury’s modelling of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. But there is one missing, Madam Acting Deputy President—and you have guessed it—it is the industry department. It is simply incomprehensible that the minister for industry should be so compliant in the construction of the new tax which—notwithstanding some of the public views of their leaders—almost every industry and business I have spoken to believes will significantly reduce their viability and in some instances force them to close. And, of course, this means huge job losses for those so-called working families. That really does say it all about this minister. Where was he on these fundamental issues such as Commercial Ready, the luxury car tax and the ETS? He was missing in action. Whilst in opposition he would say one thing and he has done exactly the opposite in government.

One thing I can say is this: come the next election the coalition will be waiting with a genuine plan and a set of policies which will actually deliver on the needs these sectors face. Unlike Senator Carr, when we say something in opposition we will actually do it in government should the Australian people decide to elect a Turnbull government in 2010.