O'Connor Simon: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Simon: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 29 January 2014. Volume:696;Page:15620. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]11.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to theMinister of Science and Innovation: How is the Government encouraging New Zealand businesses to undertake more research and development?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Science and Innovation): Mr Speaker—[Interruption] I will just wait for Ms King to—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Let it go Annette.Mr SPEAKER: I have now called the Hon Steven Joyce.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Earlier this month I announced—[Interruption] It is important that we get this Mr Speaker as the Labour Party does not understand that this information and communications technology stuff and innovation stuff is going on. So I think that we might wait—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the Minister now simply address the question.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Earlier this month I announced that 31 high-tech New Zealand businesses have been awarded—Hon David Cunliffe: How to delete a tweet? Or how to roll out broadband so that people actually use it?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —listen Mr Cunliffe because you do not know it is happening—$140 million over 3 years to assist with their research and development programmes. Research and development growth grants available to mid-sized and large New Zealand - based businesses provide each company with 20 percent co-funding of up to $5 million a year to help encourage the conduct of business research and development in New Zealand. As part of our Business Growth Agenda the Government is committed to creating the right environment incentives for businesses to double their expenditure on research and development to more than 1 percent of GDP and we are making good progress on that target. Business innovation is crucial for New Zealand companies in a tough international environment. These grants help our businesses invest more so that that they can compete more effectively internationally.Simon O’Connor: How do businesses qualify for these growth grants and what other research and development support is available?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Research and development growth grants are available to New Zealand - based businesses with a track record in research and development and a commitment to spend at least $300000 a year and at least 1.5 percent of revenue on research and development occurring in New Zealand. The $140 million in funding is part of a wider—Tracey Martin: How does that helpSMEs?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —listen you will get there—business research and development support programme administered by Callaghan Innovation research and development growth grants research and development student grants and—yes Tracey—research and development project grants for smaller businesses with a total of $566 million available over 4 years. The project grants are available for smaller companies and those that are new to research and development while incubator support programmes assist start-up businesses.Simon O’Connor: What other policy proposals did the Minister consider for encouraging high-growth innovative business particularly those based online?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am always considering suggestions and I considered one suggestion that I received yesterday that was about shutting down major websites if the Government of the day does not like them. However I do not think the proposed Facebook ban from the Labour Party is likely to encourage innovation in the New Zealand information and communications technology sector. So although we have no plans to introduce a great firewall of New Zealand for social media websites we do appreciate the suggestion from a Mr Clark all the same and I think that we can observe that he has had an even worse start to his year than Mr Cunliffe has.