Triple J Hack

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview - Triple J Hack with Tom Tilley

Monday 7 December 2015

SUBJECT: National Innovation and Science Agenda.

TOM TILLEY: Well, Innovation Minister Christopher Pyne is with us in the studio, Christopher Pyne, great to have you back on the show.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Hello Tom, good to be with you again.

TOM TILLEY: Yeah, now ever since Malcolm Turnbull took the leadership of the Government, he’s been talking about the new vibe and the zeitgeist and now we actually have a bit more of a sense of what the vibe actually is. Could you explain how it will directly affect the lives of all the young people listening right now?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, the $1.1 billion announcement today does several things, it’s very comprehensive and that’s why it’s been very well received. It’ll change the structure around support for startups and the tax system, around bankruptcies, around depreciation of assets, it will actually make startups very attractive as new businesses and that doesn’t cost very much money. It has a significant investment in venture capital funds through the CSIRO and a biomedical translation fund to turn good research into jobs and growth. It addresses our skills shortages around science, technology, engineering and maths and changes the way the Government’s attitude exists towards procurement and using our big dollar to drive a high tech industry. So, in summary though, it means more jobs and more growth in the economy, in innovative industries, it’s the new ideas boom to follow up the resources boom of old.

TOM TILLEY: Okay and where specifically will the jobs be for young people, the people who maybe aren’t starting up these companies or being able to buy these companies, where do you think the jobs will be, where can they look out for them?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, in the last 10 years there have been 1.4 million new jobs created in startups so there’s been 1.4 million Australians employed in small, innovative startup businesses. The same time 400,000 people have lost their jobs in the traditional industries. So, this is already happening but what we’re going to do is turbo charge the sector so that in high tech and innovative businesses, whether they’re service delivery businesses or processes around management or digital technologies or data retention, all these areas that young people get, because that’s what they do every day, this is the future for the ideas boom and it’ll replace the resources boom. We’ll always have agriculture and tourism and education services and mining and financial services but this opens up the economy so that we can have a focus on the kinds of the sector where Israel, California, Germany, South Korea have been acting for some time. We want to get with the strength and get in front of it.

TOM TILLEY: Okay, now the package involves new funding for the CSIRO and I read a text message from a listener about that a moment ago. Are you just replacing the money that was taken out in last year’s Abbott-led Budget?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, no not at all. I mean, that’s a very negative way of looking at things. Firstly, there wasn’t any cut to the CSIRO. The CSIRO increased its spending but the gradient of promises that had been made for it might have been slowed. What we’ve done is put $75 million into Data61 which is the CSIRO’s digital arm, which used to be NICTA, which is very important. Secondly, we’ve created a new CSIRO Innovation Fund worth $200 million which will take fabulous public research ideas the CSIRO does or other national institutions and turns them into commercialized businesses like for example Wi-Fi which was a CSIRO invention, has enormous receipts for the CSIRO. We’re going to let them keep them so that they can keep using those to create more innovative businesses and jobs for Australians.

TOM TILLEY: Alright, Christopher Pyne, there was one comment on our Facebook page in response to this announcement that got a lot of traction with our listeners, the commenters name is Andy Anderson, he wrote ‘innovation is just the current government wank word. The reality is our core base of R&D skills has been massively eroded. Instead of maintaining a modest but consistent level of funding for scientists to build a career on, we are seeing this kind of short term grandstanding funding and calamity funding when things go balls up. Consistent backing is what we need, not massive cuts followed by massive spends’. What’s your reaction to that comment?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, that’s why I have saved the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme, not just for the next four years, but for the next 10 years. The investment in Synchotron, in the Square Kilometer Array, in the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Schemes, these are $2.3 billion over the next decade. So, I truly have fixed the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme for all time.

TOM TILLEY: Well, yeah people have been pointing out that you were ready to take $150 million away from that just in May this year and now you’ve turned around. Was there a road to Damascus moment for you on that issue?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well it’s not very much fun being negative about a massive announcement today in innovation and science, you know, I think your listeners and the public would be really impressed with the Government’s focus on innovation and science at the centre of our economy. Now, a few months ago in a different situation when we were trying to make university reform, I found the $150 million to save NCRIS for two years. I’ve now saved $1.5 billion over the next 10 years so you should be popping champagne corks Tom…

TOM TILLEY: Well lots of people are…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …and saying that’s a wonderful outcome rather than being a little bit, you know, on the negative side, without wanting to be...

TOM TILLEY: Well, I am a journalist Christopher Pyne, I am a glass half full guy, you know that but I’m…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m a glass half full guy.

TOM TILLEY: …asking you the challenging questions…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You’re being a bit glass half empty Tom.

TOM TILLEY: I’m asking you challenging questions and doing my job because we want to get right to the truth of why these announcements have come and what they’ll do…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, the truth is this is very good news for the Australian economy. It’s very good news for young people’s jobs into the future and that’s why it’s been so well received from everybody from the university sector right through to the small startup organizations like StartupAUS.

TOM TILLEY: Well, Christopher Pyne, it will be interesting to see how it rolls out, it has been a very interesting day to see Turnbull’s zeitgeist turned into policy. Thank you so much for joining us on the show.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s a great pleasure.

TOM TILLEY: Good on you, Christopher Pyne, the Innovation Minister there.

[Ends]