Joyce Steven: Advanced Technology Institute Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Joyce Steven: Advanced Technology Institute Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5225. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Science and Innovation) 
: 
 I move  
That the Advanced Technology Institute Bill be now read a first time. 
 I nominate the Education and Science Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I will move that the Education and Science Committee report to the House on the Advanced Technology Institute Bill by 6 November 2012 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 188 190 and 191(1)(b) and (c). 
 This bill provides the legislative framework for establishing the Advanced Technology Institute or ATI a new high-tech HQ for innovative New Zealand businesses. The purpose of the Advanced Technology Institute is simple: to help get New Zealand’s best ideas out of the lab and into the market place more quickly. The reality is that New Zealanders are great at coming up with smart ideas but we do need to become more successful at translating those ideas more quickly into commercially successful products. 
The Advanced Technology Institute will be a one-stop shop to assist high-tech firms to become more competitive by better connecting them with innovation and business development expertise and facilities that will exist both within the Advanced Technology Institute and across New Zealand’s Crown research institutes universities polytechnics and other research organisations. It will focus on industries with high growth potential such as food and beverage manufacturing agritechnologies digital technologies health technologies therapeutics and high-value wood products. 
The Advanced Technology Institute will help companies to grow and become more competitive. It will help increase the number of research and development - capable firms. It will help lift New Zealand’s exports of high-value manufactured goods and services and support economic growth. An important part of the Government’s Business Growth Agenda is ensuring that there are better linkages between business science engineering and design to ensure great ideas are commercialised and generate income and jobs for New Zealanders. The success of the Advanced Technology Institute will be measured by how much it helps manufacturing and service firms to innovate to increase their productivity to grow their exports and to operate more efficiently. 
Growing innovation is a key way to create a better-performing economy and improve the standard of living of all New Zealanders. This Government has set the goal of raising the amount businesses spend on research and development from 0.54 percent to 1 percent of GDP. OECD research shows that at a national level increasing business expenditure on research and development drives economic growth. That is why we want the current investment from business in research and development to go up and that is why we are co-funding with businesses in substantial research and development expenditure. 
International evidence shows that institutes like the Advanced Technology Institute help companies innovate beyond the point their own capabilities allow enabling them to increase earnings and employ more people. The Government has committed $166 million in this year’s Budget to support the Advanced Technology Institute. 
The Advanced Technology Institute Bill establishes the Advanced Technology Institute as a Crown agent recognising its mix of commercial and non-commercial objectives and its role in facilitation and as a gateway through which businesses can access funding for research and development. It will deliver specific programmes and initiatives and therefore there will need to be a close alignment between the Advanced Technology Institute’s strategy and activities and Government policy. 
Based in Auckland the Hutt Valley and Christchurch the Advanced Technology Institute will be very different from other New Zealand research institutions. It will be very strongly business-focused and connected and very responsive to commercial imperatives and time frames. It will offer a broad range of innovation support services including technical services as well as providing access to specialised expertise and facilities. It will also seek to improve connectivity between businesses and the significant but highly distributed capability that exists across New Zealand’s many public and private research organisations. It will help provide a route to global knowledge expertise and technology. Therefore collaboration will be key for the Advanced Technology Institute. 
To succeed it must work well with industry Crown research institutes universities and polytechnics and other research providers to develop partnerships that maximise commercialisation opportunities. It will facilitate placements of researchers and graduate students with industry while allowing academic stars to advance their careers and gain greater financial reward. 
The assets and staff of Industrial Research Ltd will form much of the foundation of the Advanced Technology Institute and this bill provides for Industrial Research Ltd to become a non - Crown research institute subsidiary company of the Advanced Technology Institute upon its establishment. 
Last month the Government appointed a highly experienced seven-member establishment board which is charged with making the necessary operational decisions to get the Advanced Technology Institute operational as soon as possible. We have also announced that the Advanced Technology Institute will be named after one of New Zealand’s greatest scientists the late Sir Paul Callaghan. Sir Paul believed science was not only about great ideas but also about getting value from those ideas through innovation and commercialisation. Those views exactly reflect the ambition of this new institute so there can be few more appropriate names to be associated with it. 
It is important that this bill be considered promptly and reported back to the House by 6 November so that the Advanced Technology Institute can be up and running early in 2013 and doing its good work for this country. I commend this bill to the House.