Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:C2004A04141:body:0:p3
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:C2004A04141
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 7989–11051

entered into by the Board under section 34a;".

Functions of Board

5. Section 7 of the Principal Act is amended by omitting from paragraph (b) "and payments under national interest agreements" and substituting ", payments under national interest agreements and payments under national procurement development program agreements".

Guidelines for policies and practices of Board

  6. Section 20 of the Principal Act is amended:

    (a)     by omitting from subsection (1) "or national interest agreements" and substituting ", national interest agreements or national procurement development program agreements";

    (b)    by omitting from subsection (2) "The Minister shall not" and substituting "Subject to subsection (2a), the Minister must not";

  (c)     by inserting after subsection (2) the following subsection:

     "(2a) Subsection (2) does not apply if the directions are given in accordance with a request made by the Board.".

Agreements for discretionary grants

7. Section 28 of the Principal Act is amended by omitting from paragraph (2) (a) "1991" and substituting "1994".

Agreements for generic technology grants

8.     Section 31 of the Principal Act is amended by omitting from paragraph (2) (a) "1991" and substituting "1994".

9.     After section 34 of the Principal Act the following Division is inserted:

"Division 3a—National Procurement Development Program Agreements

National procurement development program agreements

"34a. (1) Subject to this Act and to any relevant directions under section 20, the Board may enter into an agreement, on behalf of the Commonwealth, with a corporate researcher and an Australian government body about a project directed towards meeting the demand, or likely demand, of one or more Australian government bodies or Australian government contractors for goods or services.

"(2) Except in special cases, the Board must not enter into a national procurement development program agreement unless it is satisfied that the project concerned:

    (a)     is directed towards the development of internationally competitive goods or services; and

  (b)     involves adequate trialling and demonstration activities.

"(3) The Board may refuse to enter into a national procurement development program agreement about a project if the carrying out of the agreement would be likely to give an undue competitive advantage to an Australian government body that carries on business.

"(4) A corporate researcher or an Australian government body, or both, may make an application to the Board for a national procurement development program agreement.

  "(5) In this section:

'goods or services' includes the result of a designated activity.

Designated activities

"34b. The Minister may, by notice published in the Gazette, declare an activity to be a designated activity for the purposes of the definition of 'designated activity' in subsection 4 (1).".

Repayment of subsidies on breach of agreement

10. Section 38 of the Principal Act is amended by adding at the end the following subsection:

"(2)