These firms need to acquire relevant information to improve their overall competitiveness. The Government tackles this market failure through information programs from AusIndustry our chief agency for encouraging innovation in industry. For example, AusIndustry assists firms in Business Planning and Benchmarking. And that help in getting business planning underway can deliver dramatic results, as this example shows. This enables them to solve common problems that are beyond their individual capacities to solve, or to exploit mutual strengths.
Japanese expenditure is three times our level.
The recent AMC study, Wealth of Ideas , highlights the importance of technological innovation as an essential aspect of business innovation. This trend is encouraging, but much ground still needs to be made up. The changes we announced in the last budget were designed to ensure that these programs generated maximum returns on our national investment in research. We reduced the general tax concession rate from 150 to 125 per cent and overhauled various aspects of its operation. The Government has been criticised by some sections of the business and research communities for taking these hard decisions.