Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is without doubt that Australians are great innovators, and our research at Australian universities and research institutions has led to the discovery of some world-changing inventions. These include wi-fi, discovered by CSIRO researchers; the Cervarix cancer vaccine; polymer banknotes; and spray-on skin. The member for Aston's motion is, however, a brazen attempt to rewrite history about the former government's abysmal record of support for Australian universities.

Let's look at the facts. According to the Global Innovation Index, Australia has fallen six places, to No. 25, since 2013. Between 2018 and 2021, the Morrison government oversaw the steepest decline, from position 20 to No. 25. Similarly, in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index 4.0, Australia has fallen two places since 2018, to No. 16 overall but ranking as low as 29th in areas such as infrastructure and ICT adoption. Australia has fallen 10 spots in the past decade in Harvard University's Atlas of Economic Complexity. A 2019 International Institute for Management Development World Competitiveness Center study highlighted that Australia had slipped from ninth in the world in 2015 to 14th in 2019 for digital readiness.

And who can forget the coalition's abandonment of Australian universities during the pandemic? Forty thousand jobs were lost from higher education, and hundreds of courses were cut, including thousands of researchers. The coalition refused to support international students, telling them to go home instead during COVID-19. They politicised and interfered with research grants. This included significant delays when announcing outcomes and targeted cuts to the humanities, arts and social sciences disciplines.

The Albanese Labor government is supporting research, supporting innovation and supporting education. Labor made it clear before the election that we will support the University Research Commercialisation Action Plan, and that remains the case. Labor has also committed to 2,000 Startup Year loans to help support final-year students to bring their ideas to life. Working with higher education institutions, entrepreneurs and investors will be better placed to identify opportunities for commercialisation of university research. The $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund will turn science into jobs through co-investment, loans, equity and guarantees.

Labor has a strong record of investment in the University of Newcastle too. When Labor was last in government, we funded $30 million to the University of Newcastle's NUspace campus in the CBD; $212 million in research grants; $30 million to the Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources; $20 million for a clean energy innovation centre; and $48.5 million for the Hunter Medical Research Institute. In 2022 Labor is partnering with the University of Newcastle again, to build a new facility to test and invent solutions to global challenges when it comes to the use of hydrogen and other new energy industries.

We are investing $16 million in the University of Newcastle to provide the enabling industrial-scale infrastructure that is needed to get a new energy skills hub off the ground and running. The skills, techniques and technologies developed by this project will enable local industry, including the new hydrogen investments that we have announced for Port of Newcastle, to grow to their fullest potential and to do that in a safe and speedy manner.

The Albanese Labor government supports research and education so that Australians will continue to be the great innovators of the future, as we always have been.

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