Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Science) Share this | Hansard source

I just want to express, obviously, support for this. I think there is a great opportunity for us, in terms of the bill as a whole, to send a very important signal in terms of us tapping into the ideas of young Australians to build new businesses. We need to build new businesses. We need to send a signal from government that entrepreneurism and that activity is really important.

I'm grateful for the opportunity, Minister for Education, to speak, because I know that there are some members of the crossbench who also think about who builds those businesses. We want to get a wider range of people building those businesses—in particular I note the presence of the member for Goldstein; we spoke about this in the National Reconstruction Fund—particularly female founders, people from under-represented groups and people from groups beyond city boundaries who are able to use that network, the architecture of regionally based universities, to do that and create businesses in our regions as well. And I note the member for Forrest's presence here as well and I know you're focused on it.

Being able to send a clear intent in the title, being able to match that up with what we're doing in this bill and being able to, potentially, be able to create 2,000 new, young firms that are injecting business dynamism in the Australian economy is something that I think we should all be able to agree upon. I'm very grateful for the amendment put forward and the fact that we are very focused on sending the signal that young Australian's ideas and know-how matter. Creating firms that will create good jobs and being able to call up people from all corners to do so is a great thing. I want to express my support for the amendment.

See this speech in context