Woods Megan: Advanced Technology Institute Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Woods Megan: Advanced Technology Institute Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5239. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) 
: 
 Thank you for your prescience. Thank you for your prescience Mr Speaker. I am very happy to take a call on the Advanced Technology Institute Bill to talk of Labour’s support for the bill and to continue what my two colleagues who have spoken previously have already started to do in spelling out some of the questions and some of the concerns that Labour has with the bill in its current form and some of the questions we would like to see answered when the bill does go to the Education and Science Committee. As a member of that select committee I am very much looking forward to this piece of legislation coming to that committee and to our having a chance to examine it. 
Labour knows the value to the economy of science and innovation. We know that if we are going to have export-led growth we have to get this right and that there is no question that our economic future lies in our ability to commercialise our fantastic science to get it to market and to build businesses and industry around this science. We know that there is no second chance that this is a crossroads in our history and that this is a time when we have to get it right. 
But what Labour is concerned about is that this is going to be another science commercialisation strategy from National that will not succeed. We have already seen examples in the last 4 years. We have had a whole lot of talk this afternoon about the wonderful record of National in Government. I actually want to have a look at some of the reality of what has been happening with science funding since National came to power in 2008—what that record actually does look like—and to foreshadow some warnings that we just cannot let the Advanced Technology Institute go down this path. 
We have had member after member opposite get up and talk about all the new funding and the increased investment from National. Let us put a reality check on this. There is $166 million going into the Advanced Technology Institute over a number of years but the Science and Innovation vote rose by only $37 million. Members opposite may not realise but science inflation runs pretty high—much higher than the Consumers Price Index. So let us not get carried away. 
We do need to be looking at a model that is going to do things differently and something that is going to do it better. We are not convinced that what is currently proposed under this legislation is the way to do it. Not only is it shifting the deckchairs and cribbing money back from other parts of the science and innovation budget but also it was partially funded from the planned sale of assets. So what happens now that it looks like those asset sales are falling over or certainly have been delayed? Where is that money going to come from? It is going to have to come from somewhere. We have a delayed revenue stream from members opposite and we are not hearing any talk of that. 
We have the shifting of science and innovation funding. We are waiting on the money from assets sales that may or may not proceed because they are being rushed and the Opposition is going to stop them. And then we also have other money coming out of different parts of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment budget. So let us actually put a reality check on this and realise that it is not the nirvana that members opposite are trying to sketch out. 
The Advanced Technology Institute is in many ways based on the Danish model which is referred to often in the Government’s papers. The Danes do actually have a very sophisticated innovation network and their technology institute is a huge part of that. But one of the things that we have to bear in mind is that this is New Zealand looking to implement a model that the Danes are actually moving away from. The Danes are seeing that the provision—the absolute provision—of science through the kind of institute that they have is not necessarily the way to do it and that a lot of it is actually vis-à-vis consultancy and activities related to consultancy rather than direct provision. This is where we need to make sure that the New Zealand model is fit for purpose for the New Zealand market that it is a model that New Zealand businesses will engage with and that it is something that is going to make a real difference. 
So why is it that Labour is concerned that this is not going to work? Well it is its track record really. It is National’s track record of trying to come up with new ways of delivering science funding that just have not worked. I want to look at the technology voucher system that National brought in with a huge fanfare in the 2010 Budget. We were told that this was going to be a way for small and medium sized enterprises in New Zealand in the manufacturing health and medical technology sectors to access funding. These were going to be huge projects. They were going to be projects with co-funding over $100000. Well it did not work. Less than a year later this had to be downgraded to $30000 because the money simply was not there. Not only did the money have to be downgraded but it had to be extended out because the manufacturing sector simply did not have enough money to take up this money. 
So what happened? It was extended into the agribusiness sector. Once again it was primary industries that were funded. There is nothing wrong with funding our primary industries and I am a huge fan of funding our primary industries. I would just like to assure my colleague Damien O’Connor behind me; I could feel the glare boring into my skull from behind. The point is that this was money that was meant to be about transforming the New Zealand economy and about building up another string to the bow in high-value manufacturing. And it did not work. It has been a failure. 
The concern the very real concern is that already the Advanced Technology Institute is going down this very same path. There is no learning from history for members opposite. The Advanced Technology Institute was announced by John Key with great fanfare. It was signalled before the Budget that this was going to be about the high-value manufacturing sector. We were told that it was going to be about delivering engineering services and it was going to be about small and medium sized enterprises being able to access these services this technical engineering and scientific know-how. We have it stated in the objectives of the bill that it is about technology-based innovation. It is all around this engineering. 
But lo and behold what has happened? Exactly what happened with the voucher system. We are already seeing that this has been expanded out. We now have basically the Food Innovation Network New Zealand folded into it. We are seeing it extended out and once again there simply is not enough take-up in the manufacturing sector. We are having to extend this out into our agribusiness. Once again there is nothing wrong with that but what we are seeing is that this does nothing to address the structural problems and the fact that we do not have the basis of a strong manufacturing sector in New Zealand. It does nothing to address the problems that my colleague David Parker talked about. It does nothing to address the reasons why it is that our manufacturers find it difficult to export. It does nothing to address the lack of capital available to the manufacturing sector in New Zealand. 
So once again we are going down the same path and my very real concern is that in a matter of only a very short time we are going to see the Minister of Science and Innovation coming to the select committee and admitting to us as he did about the vouchers that it has been a disappointing scheme and has not been as successful as they hoped. Well this is not a time for a hope and a prayer. This is a point in New Zealand’s history to get this right and for us to do something real and significant about supporting our high-value manufacturing system. 
We are not supporting the pipeline of ideas. What we have seen from this Government when we saw in the Budget that it announced the Advanced Technology Institute is that it is going to stop postgraduate research in New Zealand. If you want an economy based on innovation then fund people to do postgraduate research. You do not need an Advanced Technology Institute to tell you that because it ain’t rocket science. If you want science and innovation in your economy have scientists have technologists and have engineers. Postdoctoral positions are in a crisis in this country. We simply do not have enough funding to be encouraging the level of leadership in the next generation of leadership within the scientific community. Scientists know this and they are fast losing faith in this Government. In fact the science and technology community has no idea what is happening around the Advanced Technology Institute; it feels locked out. Science and innovation needs to be an inclusive environment where commercialisation and the researchers and the scientists are linked up not made to feel like something is happening around them and they have no idea. 
My fear is that we have a Government that once again is talking big the rhetoric of innovation. There are huge promises once again about economic transformation but the Government is repeating the mistakes of history. The Government is going to under-deliver on this unless we make the changes that we need to. We need to be identified— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. Her time has expired.