Simpson Scott: Advanced Technology Institute Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Simpson Scott: Advanced Technology Institute Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5242. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak this afternoon in favour of the first reading of the Advanced Technology Institute Bill in the name of the Hon Steven Joyce. This is another part of the Government’s growth and innovation programme and it is a very very good part. In a previous life I had the privilege of being the New Zealand general manager of a company called Protector Safety. We sold industrial protective equipment and products to workers and businesses around the countryside. It gave me a terrific opportunity to meet with literally hundreds of business entrepreneurs business owners and people who had in many cases started large companies from small good ideas. Inevitably— 
Mike Sabin 
: Real-world experience. 
SCOTT SIMPSON 
: Yes real-world experience the member for Northland tells me and it was indeed. But many times when I was visiting companies that had started from good ideas the owners and the people who had started those companies would tell me horror stories about the difficulties they had had in terms of setting those companies up. They related the problems they had had in getting the good idea the good concept to a marketable saleable product stage where they could market it internationally on behalf of New Zealand and in terms of taking their product to an international market. 
Supporting this bill is a step to making that sort of opportunity easier for New Zealand entrepreneurs and for New Zealand scientists who have good ideas and can understand that actually the mix of science and business is a good one. It is a good one but it is often a fraught one because sometimes the good ideas and the business do not necessarily connect. There are a number of sad stories in our commercial history where we have had some terrific concept ideas that simply have not been able to be brought to market because we have missed an opportunity at this level. So the Advanced Technology Institute will be a step along the way to making those sorts of things easier for our innovative scientists and our innovative entrepreneurial business people. National knows that that is important so that we can stay ahead of the global market. 
I think it is very appropriate that this institute will be named after the late Sir Paul Callaghan. That is a tribute to him to his innovation to his science and to his passion for New Zealand and our future. He believed absolutely that science could make New Zealand a better place and he had a passion for that. He knew also that linking science with business was a powerful mix for getting high value from good ideas. He believed that you could champion these things and that by championing them you could turn them into something tangible and real. 
So the institute will become an innovation incubator and it has got serious grunt. There is going to be some serious money behind it—$166 million over 4 years. Of that $90 million will be operational expenditure and $76 million will be capital expenditure. It is about getting those good ideas researched getting them right and getting them to market quickly efficiently and most important profitably. 
With facilities located in Auckland Wellington and Christchurch the institute will be well positioned. The focus will be on opportunities and industries like food and beverage agriculture and digital technologies. 
But what I want to focus on is the opportunities in the health technology sector. In health technology I have got in my electorate of Coromandel in the very great township of Katikati a terrific business by the name of Triodent that is doing exactly this sort of stuff. That is a business that was started just 8 years ago. It now has an export revenue line of $20 million and will over the next 3 years raise that to $50 million. What is it doing? Well it is exporting tiny little pieces of smart technology in the dental area. Anyone who has ever had crown tooth work done will know how expensive that is. This company Triodent in Katikati produces these little dental tools that dentists use when they are doing crown work and it sells them for US$95 apiece. I visited Triodentrecently and in my hand I held a container a ClickClack container of 2000 pieces of these little widgets that are produced. There was something like $200000 worth of export dollars being held in my hand and not a 40-foot container in sight. That is smart innovative technology being used to create huge export dollars and opportunity for us and for our future. 
I am looking forward to participating at the select committee stage. I know that the chair of the Education and Science Committee Nikki Kaye will do an admirable job. I am looking forward to progressing this bill through the select committee because I know that it will add to an already good and thorough growth programme initiated by this John Key - led National Government.