Woods Megan: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18551. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram):Last week when we had the pleasure of having the Minister of Science and Innovation at the Education and Science Committee for the estimates hearing the Minister told us that he did not see the Government’s investment in Callaghan Innovation as being about creating jobs in the high-value manufacturing sector. He said that he saw this as being about creating jobs in the research sector. Well therein lies the difference between Labour and National and what we see as the purpose of our investment and putting money into science and innovation. This is a Minister of Science and Innovation who I would note in an earlier contribution this afternoon called interest rates one of the laws of physics. But I did think he at least understood innovation and what it takes to translate good ideas and smart thinking into viable products and companies. But when you are divorcing the investment that we make as a country and the commitment of taxpayer money into science and innovation from the creation of high-value jobs in the high-value manufacturing sector we have a problem.National thinks that achieving the Budget surplus is all it is about. But in Labour we have a grander vision of this. We want to make investments that will lead to New Zealanders having higher-paying jobs in the future. That is the reason we invest. If we stop and pause to consider the name of this very new Crown entity Callaghan Innovation we see that it was the vision of Sir Paul Callaghan that the reason we invest was to transform our economy for the good of people—not for the good of companies’ balance sheets but for the good of people and the country as a whole with the purpose being to put more money into people’s pockets. This is not a vision that the Minister shares clearly.But what we do have in Callaghan Innovation is a fledgling Crown entity where really very few people are still sure of exactly what it is what its mandate is or what it is trying to achieve. This is from some of the people who work in the organisation. If we have a look at what could have been if we have a look at the Taiwanese model if we have a look at the Danish model we see two very good organisations that had a clear mandate from their Government and a very well-defined mandate of what it was and what their role was to do. That was the creation of high-value manufacturing to really kickstart advanced technology in those countries.But if we have a look at how we have started out with Callaghan Innovation we see that we have Callaghan Innovation trying to sell important intellectual property in terms of high-value manufacturing through KiwiStar Optics. We saw that last year. This is still something that is bubbling along without resolution. But one of the very fearful things that we have is that this is a Government and a Minister that was willing to sell some of our good ideas offshore and for New Zealand to not realise the benefit of that.But then we have a look at what is happening to many of the companies that are receiving grants from within Callaghan Innovation and actually some of the precursor organisations as well. We ask whether what we have put in place has done anything to turn round the fact that too many of our good ideas get sold and disappear offshore. If we have a look at the figures released in 2012 by Technology Investment Network we see that 32 of our biggest and best high-tech businesses that were created in the last decade have disappeared overseas and Callaghan Innovation is not doing anything to turn that round. We have seen BioDiscovery not being able to receive its full grant because although it would have been awarded it only late last year it has already made a decision to take it offshore. We have had LanzaTech make the decision to go offshore. We have had GreenButton make the decision to go offshore.So what is it that could have averted that and is Callaghan Innovation doing it? And is the Minister pushing along the reason to do it? Well many of these companies have pointed to the fact that the places that they are moving to have research and development tax credits. If we have a look at LanzaTech it pointed specifically to the more positive research environment that it was moving to that would allow its business to flourish. Instead what we have is Callaghan Innovation in its fledgling state and Labour really hopes that Callaghan Innovation succeeds. When we are in Government we will actually put the levers in place to ensure that it can but now we have many in the sector both the science sector and the business sector—