Economy: Innovation, Science and Research

Mr HAWKE (Mitchell—Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) (16:00): I have to say it is not the audacity of hope over there, is it? There are not many budding Barack Obamas sitting on that bench—not many ideas, not much innovation and not much hope that we can see coming from the opposition benches. There are a few—as we heard just now—budding Roger Corbyns over there, because the member for Charlton says: 'Everyone I meet asks me for money. Everyone I have ever met on any government body I have ever sat on has asked me for a buck.' You know, Member for Charlton, you can say no to people who ask you for a dollar. In fact, coming from the Australian Labor Party, you should say no more often, Member for Charlton. You should say no when people ask you for money.

It is the case that the Turnbull government is interested in innovation and science. Indeed, we are spending a lot more money on science now that we have exited the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, when—of course they may not know it over there—something in the order of $82.9 million was cut from the CSIRO between the years 2011-12 and 2016-17. This was on top of the cuts of $63.4 million in 2008. Some people in the gallery, some people listening to this debate and some of my colleagues on the government benches are wondering: is this possibly the lamest MPI that we have ever had in the history of this parliament? I have to say that it is very much the case that it might be. But, if we are talking about the CSIRO, I want to say that the former Labor government, which the member for Greenway was in, cut money from the CSIRO. In terms of innovation, Kim Carr, who is still in the science and research innovation portfolio, admitted something about those cuts that was very innovative. He is a very innovative fellow, the shadow minister for innovation, because he admitted that the cuts to science, the cuts to the CSIRO, made by the previous Labor government had to be taken and had to be tough, 'because we are fighting a war on inflation'. You might think that inflation is about the monetary supply. Thousands of years of economic theory might tell you that inflation has certain factors that contribute to it, but this shadow minister for innovation thinks that science funding creates inflation within Australia and that the way to fight the war on inflation is to cut science funding.

So not only do we have an MPI that is one of the lamest we have ever had in this parliament's history; we also have a complete misnomer in that the previous government cut funding. This matter is so unimportant we had the shadow minister leave us for most of the debate. He was not even listening to the debate. But I know that many of us here would think that there were some arguments that would come across—ideas. We heard a lot of talk about ides. But I listened carefully to the contributions from the members for Charlton, Scullin, Greenway and Chifley, in all of their longwindedness, and I tried to write down the key arguments and the key ideas they were putting in favour of this debate. The best thing I came up with after 20 or 30 minutes of debate was a phrase that I put on this piece of people in my notebook, 'this page intentionally left blank', because really we heard nothing about what this MPI is about.

I have a piece of advice for the member for Greenway: this is called a matter of public importance because it is supposed to be important. It is supposed to be about something important. It is supposed to be so important that you stay in the chamber and listen to the debate, member for Greenway, and you do not leave for three-quarters of the debate. It is supposed to be so important that the member for Scullin prepares his remarks in advance and delivers them with some sort of enthusiasm. It is supposed to be so important that you send in somebody more important than the member for Charlton to talk about it. If this matter is so important, let us have some debate about ideas, let us have some debate about policy and let us have some real argument about something.

As the Assistant Minister for Innovation said, the new paradigm is here. We are talking about ideas and innovation. There is more funding for science. There is more funding for STEM. We are talking about innovation and start-ups and a new culture in this country, where every economic policy is directed towards economic growth, towards growth in start-ups and towards the government of the 21st century.

All I would say to the Australian parliament is: please innovate in your own ranks and come up with a better MPI so we can have a reasonable debate in the Australian parliament, because the Australian people want us focused on the economic settings that will allow for start-ups to grow and start up their own businesses without the government's involvement, not by opening the government's chequebook, and not by going around to see the member for Charlton and saying 'Can I have more money,' and having him say yes. He always says yes, because he does not know how to say no when someone asks him for government money. This matter of public importance is unimportant. (Time expired)