The Federal Government’s “Innovation statement”

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The Federal Government has published an “Innovation statement” aimed at making Australia a clever country and drive innovation. The Australian Financial Review has listed 11 offers from the Federal Government’s innovation statement worth more than $1 billion dollars.

  1. Stable science investment: By far the largest funding is reserved to provide stable funding for science infrastructure. It will receive $459 million in total over 4 years, with most funding starting in 2017.
  2. Tax: Investors will be able to get a 20% tax offset, instead of a deduction or capital gains tax exemption. This tax offset will benefit people more evenly across income groups. This will cost $106 million over 4 years, with most funding starting from 2017.
  3. Start-ups: The established start-ups will be offered a 10% tax rebate for venture capital investments to expand existing start-ups.
  4. Bankruptcy: Laws will be changed to reduce the default bankruptcy period from 3 years to 1 year, and the ‘same business test’ will be replaced with ‘predominantly similar business test’. This will allow business to access past losses and this new law will be introduced in the first half of 2016. There are no additional costs with this change.
  5. University funding incentives: The government will allocate $127 million over 4 years of research block grant funding towards collaboration between industry and universities.
  6. Visas: A new entrepreneurs visa will be created to attract international talent, and post-grad students with STEM or ICT talent will be fast-tracked permanent residency to be commenced by November 2016. This will cost $1 million from 2015 to mid-2017.
  7. Offshore ‘landing pads’: Australian entrepreneurs will be able to travel with a new visa type more easily to Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv and three other unknown locations, likely in Europe and Asia. This will cost $18 million over 4 years.
  8. Cyber security: A new “Cyber Security Growth Centre” will be established costing $22 million over 4 years, to be set up by mid-2016. An additional $15 million over 4 years will go to quantum computing.
  9. Government body: A new board in the Industry Department called Innovation and Science Australia will be created, along with a new innovation and science committee of cabinet.
  10. Summer schools: More funding will be given for school coding programs for year 5s and 7s and ICT summer schools for year 9s and 10s. This will cost $84 million over 4 years and will begin in 2016.
  11. CSIRO: $200 million will be returned to CSIRO from the government. This is placed into an innovation fund aimed at co-investing in new companies and existing start-ups established by CSIRO, publicly funded research agencies or universities.

The original article can be found at:

http://www.afr.com/news/politics/innovation-statement-at-a-glance-20151206-glgwza