King Colin: Callaghan Innovation Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
King Colin: Callaghan Innovation Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 04 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7022. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 It is an urgent need that this bill the Callaghan Innovation Bill gets passed and it is a pleasure to be speaking during the third reading. 
I want to just dwell on two points that have been raised. The first one is around the attitude of the Greens and Labour in their approach to this whole matter. I would like to refer to the Business New Zealand submission. Business New Zealand for instance has 14000 members and 17000 associates and its comment in its submission was that “There is a gap in the market at the applied end of the R & D spectrum which [Callaghan Innovation] is designed to fill ...”. This is something that has been overlooked as the Labour and Green members laboured the point of the submissions that came through from those people who had vested interests. In actual fact I would like to remind Labour and the Greens that they had 9 years to get some resemblance of order around the Crown research institutes around science and innovation and I would just like to have it on record that they failed miserably. 
Callaghan Innovation will be driven by the market sending signals back to innovators as they seek science solutions. From that point of view we will find that the solving of these situations will be around research and development problems and challenges and they will create the opportunities. This bill is so very appropriate in doing so. What the Callaghan Innovation Bill is designed to achieve is a robust and successful connection between the market and innovation. 
I would have to put it on record also that during the submission stage in the Education and Science Committee one detected a degree of self-interest and patch protection coming across from those people whom we laud as scientists and researchers. 
This bill appropriately puts together the essential framework in which this dynamic organisation which carries the name of Callaghan Innovation will drive innovation. It will develop and increase the confidence that we want to see within business to grow the investment because really we need to build a culture inside this country of business confidence of getting an excellent return from research and development investment. That is why it is not happening or has not happened. It will be the measure of success of Callaghan Innovation. That will be the bar on which it will be measured. 
 Although the Greens and Labour talked about the funder/provider split let me remind you that under Labour we put together the funding and provision arms of the New Zealand Transport Agency and we did that for a very good reason: so that there were efficiencies. In actual fact Business New Zealand pointed out: “We endorse this as a sensible move so that the operational side of [Callaghan Innovation] does not get politicised due to perceived conflicts of interest.” 
I support this bill wholeheartedly. It is urgently needed and it is urgently needed because we want to provide confidence to business to invest in research and development find innovative solutions and drive this country’s economy.