Woods Megan: Advanced Technology Institute Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Woods Megan: Advanced Technology Institute Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 27 November 2012. Volume:686;Page:6838. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) 
: 
 The clauses we are debating at this stage of the Advanced Technology Institute Bill really cut to the heart of some of the concerns that people have around the bill. The purpose statement in clause 3 is a very short statement that says “The purpose of this Act is to—(a) establish the Advanced Technology Institute and to provide for its main objective functions and operating principles; and (b) provide for transitional and other matters.” It is this clause that I want to talk about because really a lot of the anxiety that is being felt out in both the business and science communities is about this very purpose of the Advanced Technology Institute—the what the when and the who of this organisation and what it can hope to achieve. 
Let us be clear the idea of the Advanced Technology Institute is motherhood and apple pie in many ways. Everybody wants to see it succeed. If it can work it will be great but this enabling legislation gives us none of the detail. What we are hearing out there is that what people want to know is what the Advanced Technology Institute is going to achieve what its philosophy is and what it sees as its core purpose. You will see as we go through the stages of this debate that Labour has put up an amendment in Supplementary Order Paper 154 that actually does go to what the objective of the institute will be. The benefit to New Zealand—the institute operating to the benefit of New Zealand—is something that Labour really encourages this Committee to mark out clearly to the establishment board that this is how the institute should operate and what the institute should be operating for. 
The role and purpose of the institute are currently pretty much a line of question marks. Within the science communities and within industry people are saying “I am not really sure what the Advanced Technology Institute is I am not really sure what it is going to achieve and what is more I am not sure how it is going to achieve it.” This is something that is of great concern to Labour members. It was certainly of great concern to Labour members who sat and listened to the submissions to the Education and Science Committee that there really was not this firm idea of the purpose of the institute. We want to see some more detail around that. 
Labour is supporting this legislation. It has to be signalled that Labour is supporting this legislation with a great deal of reservations. We are putting up some amendments that we think will strengthen the enabling legislation and will give far more direction and clearer direction to the establishment board and the establishment unit of the institute. What we are seeing is a paucity of discussion with industry and science leaders by the establishment unit and this even goes back to what the purpose of the institute is. 
Unfortunately the select committee process did not allow for us to progress that discussion and to clear up some of the understanding with the science sector and with industry. We had a ridiculously truncated process at the select committee. Submissions were open for only a matter of days and submitters had to come and speak within days of putting in their submission which for many in industry was simply not doable. I think it spoke volumes that a very small number of submissions were received. I think this is incredibly important legislation. It is certainly incredibly important to how Labour sees our economic future and the fact that we had so few members of industry come along and talk about how this new entity could aid them in increasing and helping with their businesses was of great concern to us. 
There are a number of questions around the very purpose of this institute. What business model should be put in place? What should it be? What should its role be? These are all questions that are hanging out there. How should it collaborate with the existing capability sets that exist out there whether or not they be in research and development? We have a number of players in the research and development space. We heard from a number of universities we heard from some of the other Crown research institutes and we heard from some of the other private research and development providers which are very unclear about what the purpose of the Advanced Technology Institute is. We heard from other people involved in the commercialisation space. They also have no idea really of what the core purpose of the Advanced Technology Institute will be. And we heard from people involved in the area of consultancy which is looking more and more like what the Advanced Technology Institute is going to be from the little bits of information that we can glean from various places. 
 One of the fundamental questions that needs to be addressed with the Advanced Technology Institute is how it can avoid cannibalising existing relationships in the science and innovation sector whether they be at the research level whether they be at the science level whether they be at the consultancy level or whether they be at the commercialisation level. These are the very things that have to be cleared up because Labour has great fears that this is yet another example of the Government talking big and using the rhetoric of how important science is but it is talking big and failing to deliver. We are already seeing the establishment date of 1 February being pushed out from what it originally was 1 November. There are real concerns around whether it will be ready to go on 1 February and whether it really is feasible that we will have something set up. 
In terms of the institute’s purpose we have seen that that has been expanded from its original conception which was to provide research and development expertise into the high-value manufacturing sector. We have seen that expanded out into the food space just as we saw that happen with the technology voucher system which has been a failure for this Government. It was announced with great fanfare in Budget 2010. There was going to be $20 million spent over 4 years on partnering with industry in the space of high-value manufacturing. It was going to be about game-changing research and development. It was going to be about the big pieces of research. There were going to be grants of over $100000. Well they have failed—$4 million in only 2 years—because industry has not seen this as something that will help its businesses. It was only $4 million in 2 years and less than one-third of those grants were over $100000 because the Government had to shift the threshold down to $30000 because it realised that this was not something that was fit for industry. 
What concerns us here is that industry has not had the chance to input the purposes are unclear to industry and there is very little clarity around it. That cuts to the heart of it. What you will hear from us later as we go through this legislation is that we would like to see a legislative requirement for the Advanced Technology Institute to chart out its purpose through the inclusion of a statement of core purpose—statements of core purpose being of course what all the Crown research institutes produce every year that chart out the ground in which they work so all the other providers understand what area a particular Crown research institute works in. More important industry would understand the area the Advanced Technology Institute would chart out. You will hear about amendments that we are putting up in that space. We would like to see the members opposite on the Government benches support some of these measures that we are putting up as amendments because we think these will provide some of the clarity around the purpose provide some of the clarity for science and provide some of the clarity for industry. 
The Advanced Technology Institute if we look at models in other countries that are working successfully has to have a strong relationship between Government the science sector and industry. Unfortunately what we are seeing in the case of New Zealand is a really heavy-handed approach from the Government. When we have leaders within the scientific community and leaders within the manufacturing sector coming to us as Labour members and telling us “We have no idea what this Advanced Technology Institute’s purpose is or what it’s meant to do.” then we have really grave fears. 
We really want to see this succeed. We think that in order for the New Zealand economy to improve it must have science and innovation at its core. Industry must be able to access that and we have got to be investing in that in meaningful ways. We are very fearful that this legislation and the Advanced Technology Institute that is being established under this legislation will not deliver that either for the New Zealand science sector or for the industries that it purports to support. So I would like to hear from Government members opposite how it is that there is clarity around the purpose the very core of what it is that the bill is trying to achieve and perhaps move beyond rhetoric and get down to some brass tacks of what the place is of the Advanced Technology Institute within a sophisticated scientific landscape and for industry that already accesses research in other places. How is it different? What is its purpose? What is its unique part within the New Zealand science ecosystem? We have not been satisfied that that question has been adequately answered. 
We also know that the scientific community and many of the key players within industry have not been satisfied about what the purpose of the institute is. We hope that that can be cleared up because in order for the institute to succeed that has to be cleared up. If nobody understands what its purpose is then there are real clouds there.