Woods Megan: Callaghan Innovation Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Woods Megan: Callaghan Innovation Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 04 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7010. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) 
: 
 As the Minister of Science and Innovation said this should have been an important day for New Zealand science and for our growth agenda and for the place of science and innovation in New Zealand’s economic future. Instead what we have is an overwhelming sense of underwhelming. People see this as an opportunity lost and an opportunity squandered by this Government. A significant amount of money is being invested into establishing the Callaghan institute and we on this side of the House fear that it will fail to deliver. We are voting for this legislation the Callaghan Innovation Bill because we want to see it succeed but throughout the passage of this bill through the House and through the Education and Science Committee we have pointed to a number of flaws that we see in this model. We still urge the establishment committee which has been given an incredibly wide remit under an incredibly permissive piece of legislation to take into account some of these concerns. 
This is a National Government opposite that has since the lead-up to the 2008 election promised big on science and innovation but like in so many areas it is full of big talk and grand ideas but broken promises. Over and over we hear this that this is a Government that is committed to science and innovation and research and development. Let us have a look at its election 2008 promise where it promised to put a third of the funding that it was going to crib back by cutting the research and development tax credit into other areas of science and innovation funding. This would have amounted to around $315 million over 3 years. Well $100 million over 4 years was found but this was largely from underspends in previous years. This was money carried forward. This is a whole lot of creative accounting from the Government opposite and not only creative accounting but also the reversal of commitments. What we have seen is that this is a Government that is not committed to science and innovation. It is a Government that has slashed postdoctoral funding in this country. If anyone on the other side of the House thinks we can have an economy that is based on science and innovation without adequately funding the critical phase of postdoctoral research they are kidding themselves. 
The Callaghan institute and our future in advanced manufacturing lie in the fact that we will have the scientists and the engineers with the necessary experience to staff this institute and the Government is just not committed to that. Even worse than slashing the postdoctoral funding—and it does not get much worse than that if you want an economy based on this—the Government is going to stop that. It is going to solve that problem. People will not get to be postdocs in this country because this is a Government that will not give the student allowance for people to do doctoral research any more. It is not something that it sees as important. We can talk big about the role of science and innovation big ideas clever ideas and smart New Zealanders and what they can contribute to this country but members opposite will not even back New Zealanders to go on and do Master’s or PhD research. I would be very interested to hear how they think we can have an economy that is based on science and innovation within this climate. 
 What we have seen is that this is a Government trying to make a big deal out of a whole lot of new funding with this. It is trying to catch up and it is saying that there is $166 million going into this. The reality is that only a small fraction of this is new funding. It is about shifting the deckchairs and there has been a lot of shifting of the deckchairs in this portfolio. If we have a look at the ever-changing movement of the department that administers science and innovation in this country and we look at the cost of just one of the re-brands for the Ministry of Science and Innovation $420000 was spent on coming up with the new name and the new logo. It was all meant to be about the importance that we place on science and innovation—$420k was spent for an 18-month iteration. Is this good use of science and innovation funding? No. 
But as we have said throughout the passage of this legislation we have three main concerns with the current legislation and things that we urge to be addressed. We heard the Minister talking about the need for there to be collaboration. It is our fear that this is an organisation being set up that makes collaboration inherently difficult fraught and full of tensions and central to this is our concern over the funder/provider division. The other concern we have is that in order for this to work the right people need to be having input and giving this organisation direction. And what we have not seen from Government members is a commitment to setting up the structures that mean the right people can have input into this. 
But I think one of the most concerning things for me is that after all this time all this public relations spend and the newsletters that are going out that are meant to be informing people of what is going on we have our scientific community begging the ministry and the Government to please tell them what is going on. People within the scientific community simply have no idea what the Callaghan institute is going to be and actually members opposite will be very light on detail as well. As I said this is incredibly permissive legislation. It is going to be set up by 1 February but the detail—the incredibly important detail that will dictate whether or not this organisation succeeds or fails—has yet to be fleshed out and when we have the very scientists who are meant to be working with and in this organisation saying “Please tell us what it is” I have real concerns. We are into December. This is going to be up and running by 1 February 2013 we are told. But we are being told lots of dates for the establishment of the Callaghan institute so we will watch with interest for that 1 February date. 
We see that this is a bill that once again reflects National’s lacklustre and half-baked approach to science and innovation policy. It does not see the interconnections throughout the other parts of the Government and it certainly does not reflect a Government that is committed to taking hold of our economy being hands-on and being the force that will drive economic growth in this country. As I have talked about in order to achieve benefit to New Zealand the Callaghan institute needs to have robust and meaningful input from industry. It was a concern to committee members that really there was very little industry input into the select committee deliberation. We had one submission from the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association which was the most meaningful industry input we had and this was a submission that was negative about the ability of the structure being proposed in this legislation to deliver. It expressed extreme doubts and in fact most of the submissions supporting the organisation pointed to concerns they had and asked for changes to be made—changes that Government members have not been willing to make to the set-up of this organisation. 
The institute must be set up so that it clearly marks out the area it works in. We are not seeing that. What we are seeing is an organisation being set up that others within the scientific network in New Zealand are fearful of. They have no idea where it sits within the landscape. They have no idea what its purview is and they do not know the area in which it will be operating. We have asked for this to be cleared up throughout this legislation but we have not seen it. We heard the Minister talk about collaboration being crucial but the Minister was talking about collaboration between businesses when you listened carefully to his speech. I guess what we on this side of the House realise is that if the Callaghan institute is to succeed it needs to be able to collaborate not only with businesses—something we are committed to seeing happen—but also with the people who drive innovation in this country the scientists and the engineers and this is an organisation that is structurally not set up to address this. 
There are also grave fears within the scientific community that the research focus required for real innovation to emerge is not there and that this is an organisation that will not keep committed to the excellent research the Industrial Research Ltd is currently undertaking. This is a concern because you cannot separate out commercialisation from basic and fundamental research. This is a hurried piece of legislation about which we would have liked to see more questions answered. We want to see it succeed but Labour is supporting it with grave reservations.