Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology. Will the minister please inform the House how the Morrison government is going further to secure our recovery by encouraging innovation that will support new jobs and business opportunities? And is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for the question. I know that the member, like the government, backs startup companies, backs new businesses and knows that the government is investing in policies that help fantastic innovative Australian businesses grow the economy.

The examples are everywhere in this government's policy: the $600 million Entrepreneurs Program has helped 20,000 businesses innovate and commercialise. Each of those 20,000 businesses that have participated on average have created four new jobs for that business and generated an extra $1½ million in turnover. We've had tax incentives for early-stage investment that have seen about $630 million in early-stage innovation companies. In this year's budget, there was $124 million investment in artificial intelligence and also the patent box initiative, which is a $200 million commitment to Australian medical and biotechnological advancements through lower taxes.

But I was asked about alternatives, and an alternative innovation policy did appear strategically in today's papers with this description: the opposition leader will use his traditional budget reply speech to launch 'Startup Year'. This is supposedly a brand-new policy which is designed to help 2,000 students with startup business ideas. Mr Speaker, as you'd be aware, the word 'innovation' actually, of course, means 'new idea'. The definition of the word 'innovation' is 'new idea'. The truly fascinating thing about the new idea from the Leader of the Opposition, the brand-new innovation policy, is that the new idea is exactly the same as a six-year-old idea launched by the former Leader of the Opposition in 2015 and then dumped before the 2019 election. In 2015, Labor announced a policy, in an amazing coincidence, designed to help 2,000 students. And would you believe it? It was going to help them with start-up business ideas. In what is perhaps the most remarkable of coincidences, the name of the 2015 policy was Start-Up Year. Imagine the lack of innovation it takes to not even be able to come up with a new name for an old policy. They could have called it 'restart-up year' or 'start-up year, again'! They could have called it 'start-up year 2: return of the start-up year'! But they weren't even innovative enough in a six-year period to come up with a new name for an old policy. Literally the best that the Leader of the Opposition can do in the space of innovation is to plagiarise a six-year-old idea of his predecessor.