A payroll tax waiver system for new business is cautiously welcomed, but more must be done to support new business. The Community Alliance believes there is merit in the idea of reducing payroll tax in the first five years as long as it is administered in an open, accountable and equitable manner, and that’s the key issue. If we held balance of power, the Community Alliance would support a selection process of businesses for support that is fair and above board. Having an apolitical panel of accountants selecting businesses on the merits of their proposal is a sound idea. Our concern is that the Chief Minister’s proposal, for Cabinet to make the final decision, exposes the process to potential political abuse and favoritism and must be rejected. I am committed to working cooperatively with community, business and government agencies to create an environment that fosters small business and cuts through some of the red-tape and selective and anti-competitive practices that have increased in recent years. We have always said we will support good policy, and the part of this proposal that helps start-up businesses based on merit, is a good example of the sort of policy we would like to see more of. More broadly we are working progressively to bring affordable cuts in rates, charges and levies for government services and to ensure our tax burden is distributed fairly among ACT residents and businesses.
A Capital Knowledge Economy
What I would like to do is to create “business clusters” around centres of knowledge in Canberra. These clusters will be located close to universities like the ANU and research centres like the CSIRO, and will help to commercialise the world-leading innovations and technologies created at these institutions.
As part of the plan, the CAP will re assess ACT government laws and taxes, in order to reduce barriers for small technology startup firms. If this is not done, the knowledge and information will “leak” to where demand is highest and the barriers are lowest.
At ANU, two technologies stand out as examples of Australian ideas that are internationally competitive:
Seeing Machines is an award winning company that designs vision based human machine interfaces, and grew out of research work at the ANU. It now employs a considerable amount of people and has a client list including some of the world’s biggest car manufacturers and their suppliers.
The Solar sliver cell technology is a unique design for flexible, inexpensive and efficient solar cells, developed by Professor Andrew Blakers and Dr Klaus Weber of the ANU. Sliver cells are being commercialised by Origin Energy, who have built a pilot manufacturing plant in Adelaide.
The second stage of the project would utilise urban design to maximise human capital – a key component of value in a knowledge-based economy. Measures to be included would focus on housing, lifestyle and communications infrastructure which would allow people to work from home. Cultural and social design issues that improve cultural openness and social connections within a community would also be considered. Such measures are key to the informal information flows that help a knowledge economy to thrive.
what I mean is that in order to retain and build upon our existing high quality of life in Australia, we need to develop our knowledge economy. Australians are great at coming up with innovative, practical solutions, but we are terrible at making money from these ideas. Business clusters will help Canberra to develop our great ideas and get the rewards in the marketplace.
Comments Off
research and development going overseas
I started working for research and development(R&D) company that is based in Canberra in April this year. Up until the time I was working at the Department of defence as a help desk team leader. When you start working in the research and development field you can’t understand that it is quite a competitive game. It is surprising the amount of really good products that we develop here in Australia that are manufactured overseas law the further research and development is done overseas due to the lack of investment here in Australia.
You would expect that Australia like many other countries, the government would actually spent some time and effort in putting Australian industries ahead of the world in whatever way it could do without breaching international treaty obligations. However it seems to me that many of the opportunities that we have in research and development are often overlooked because of other concerns.
Current funding is increasingly skewed towards commercialisation and shorter-term research. The problem with this is that it runs down the basic discovery and public good research that government is best placed to fund and that also feeds the next generation of ideas.
I believe that Government should re-focus on the basic and public good research that the commercial sector will not fund. I would offer a significant boost to basic research by funding infrastructure, providing longer-term grants that also allocate adequate funds for the costs that come with starting up a new research project (general support costs), and providing greater support for early-career researchers.
I would reform Government support for commercialisation and applied innovation. The Government’s focus on ‘market failure’ – plugging perceived gaps in the system – has led to the creation of a wide array of programs that can be confusing for applicants, constitute a patchwork of support that cuts off before companies are self-sustaining, and duplicates program administration. We would rationalise and simplify this suite of programs.
I believe that funding for applied science and innovation should be focused on three broad streams: generous funding for addressing specific national challenges; business planning, venture financing and support for intermediary programs that link business with research and allow Australian innovation to be applied by industry; and long-term support for basic R&D.
