Parker David: Advanced Technology Institute Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Parker David: Advanced Technology Institute Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 28 November 2012. Volume:686;Page:6896. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 Can I pay my respects to Sir Paul Callaghan as well and congratulate his family on his being honoured in this way—having this institute named after him. I do agree with the last speaker David Clendon that the new name—Callaghan Innovation—does seem to hang and might be better with another word at the end of it. 
The point that I would like to develop a little in this debate on the title is one that David Clendon and other speakers spoke to earlier which is this mix of the new Callaghan Innovation institute—I will add the word—being both a funder and a provider and the difficulty that that poses. I do not propose to speak for a long time. I will though record some comments that were made by submitters to the Education and Science Committee. One is from Professor John Raine who is the pro vice-chancellor of innovation and enterprise at the Auckland University of Technology and who has been chair of the  
Powering Innovation 
 review which as I understand it is a review that has been conducted on behalf of the Government. He said that he was not comfortable with contestable funding being effectively allocated by this new body and said: “I have real concerns about putting contestable funding streams from the TechNZ funding programme into ATI. In the Powering Innovation report recommended changes that would really drive collaborative behaviour in the R&D and innovation eco-system [were put forward].” Then he says in respect of the model: “I think the model that would get best buy-in from the other R&D organizations”—which are going to have to be cooperating—“would be to place a relative minimum of core funding in the organisation but working with a big pool of industry-linked project funding held at MBIE which ATI can access through partnered projects with other R&D institutions plus industry partners.” 
That tension if it is not properly resolved—and it is not resolved through this legislation—could effectively cause this model to fail. Unless this tension is properly resolved you will not get cooperation between this new institute and the other research science and technology providers both in other publicly funded institutions and in industry. I think it is sad that because the submission period was so short there were virtually no submissions from other private sector research and development organisations—organisations like Scott Technology a company based in my city that provides those services to the private sector. If those organisations thought that through this legislation there would be less money available for them to advance these projects—which I am sure they do very effectively both cost-effectively and also innovatively—and if they thought that they were going to be competing with a Crown-funded organisation that not only has a leg-up in respect of its own activities but could control what funding went to others they would be concerned. 
 This was amplified also by a submission that came from Lincoln Ventures Ltd which is an organisation that sits outside Lincoln University but is related to it. The submission said: “ATI should not compete with existing RS&T providers but should facilitate their interaction with business … ATI should not then preferentially grant itself or its HVM clients RS&T funding which would allow them to out compete existing RS&T providers. If incentives are to be deployed”—I continue to quote from the submission—“to encourage investment in R & D by HVM companies these incentives should also be available to existing RS&T providers at no more of a compliance cost than that which will be determined in house and be available for ATI researchers.” Otherwise we risk creating I think confusion and we will go backwards—actually not so much create confusion but will just be setting up structures that are less efficient—