Christian Porter says he’s taking the long view in his new portfolio, sharpening the focus of industry policy and hoping to improve research commercialisation.
Christian Porter says he’s taking the long view in his new portfolio, sharpening the focus of industry policy and hoping to improve research commercialisation.
Mr Porter moved into the role of federal industry minister in March, after serving as attorney general.
He told Business News the industry portfolio was an opportunity to think longer term, rather than responding rapidly to events as attorney general.
That means building manufacturing capacity and improving commercialisation of research.
Mr Porter said he believed industry policy had a long history of covering too much ground, too thinly.
“The criticisms in previous decades are not unfair,” he said.
The government’s approach was to focus on six key manufacturing industries where the country had comparative advantage and opportunity for job growth.
Those focus industries are resource technology and critical minerals processing, space, defence, medical products, recycling and clean energy, and food and beverages, announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in September 2020.
There’s a range of programs intended to improve this capacity.
Those include the Modern Manufacturing Initiative, worth $1.3 billion, the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund, money for supply chain resilience, and support for entrepreneurship.
WA winners have included Blasta Group, for a brewery expansion; Bonissimo Coffee to reduce plastic coffee cup use; and Albemarle Corporation for reuse of lithium refinery residue (see table).
Medical businesses Avicena Systems and Cyclowest have both won grants, as has rare earths miner Lynas Corporation.
Part of this is driven by the shock of the pandemic, when many countries were concerned about a potential lack of essentials.
But Mr Porter also hopes to promote long term job growth in manufacturing.
Mr Porter highlighted critical minerals and space as particular opportunities for WA.
On space, the government is supporting the substantial Square Kilometre Array project (see below).
In critical minerals, Mr Porter said there would be potential for value adding beyond what may have seemed possible only 20 years ago.
That comes as there are at least three lithium refineries under construction or likely in WA, and work under way for development of other battery mineral projects.
Mr Porter responded to concern about grant spending by saying there had been considerable thought undertaken to set up the programs, informed by expert data, to ensure the money is used appropriately.
“We’re taking great care that when we make a policy decision on investing taxpayer money, that we’re doing it in a careful way,” he said.
“We’ve tried as a country to do too much (in industry) and spread our resources from the taxpayer too thinly.
“(If we’re successful) the proof won’t happen for many, many years.
“The proof isn’t in the expenditure… the success of these companies will be the proof.”
The second big goal is improving the way Australia commercialises research, in collaboration with Education Minister Alan Tudge.
“There’s significant room for improvement in how Australia moves technology into the commercialisation phase,” Mr Porter said.
“As a nation we perform really strongly in basic research… we don’t do as well in commercialisation.
“We (the federal government) have been focussing on how to get out of the early stage quicksand zone.”
That means changing incentives.
Research funding is often geared towards publication of academic work, while Mr Porter said it would need to be adjusted in a reasonable way to support commercialisation.
Commercialisation would also need support from corporate Australia to “pull through” research.
Mr Porter highlighted the concessional patent box tax rate, early stage tax incentives and early stage venture capital partnerships as measures by the government to support improved commercialisation.
Space
One long term decision which could be nearing payoff was the Square Kilometre Array project, where Western Australia and the federal government jointly bid to host the radio telescope.
WA was campaigning to host the project as early as 2009, with the Murchison Widefield Array precursor telescope then built as a test run.
The SKA will be the biggest radio telescope ever built, split between Australia and South Africa; and will be able to receive information from further back into the history of the universe than any existing telescope.
The international organisation behind the project has approved construction, and the federal government has chipped in $387 million for the next decade.
Mr Porter said it was satisfying to see the project progressing.
He had served in cabinet in that state government, as attorney general and then treasurer.
“I was involved in the very early stages in the Barnett government… (when we) made the decision,” he said.
At that time it had been at a speculative stage, and there had been some criticism the government got involved early.
“It’s really satisfying,” Mr Porter said
“That (bid) has been shown to be a wise decision.
“It’s a great project, the ecosystem we’re going to develop around it.
“The supercomputing centre gets us a foothold in expertise in quantum computing, the level of data to be processed by the Pawsey Centre is astounding.”
A tough year
Mr Porter started the year as attorney general, but took leave from the role in March after he revealed he was the man at the centre of claims that a woman had been sexually assaulted by a Liberal MP in 1988, when Mr Porter was aged 17.
The NSW Police closed their investigation due to a lack of admissible evidence, while some in the media and parliament called for a further inquiry.
Mr Porter took on the industry portfolio weeks later.
When asked, he told Business News it had been a tough year for many people and that he saw it as his role to protect jobs.
“It has been a year I never would have expected to experience in my life,” Mr Porter said.
But he said he had no choice but to get up and get on with the job.
“I’m getting up and doing it, I’m very privileged... I’m not going to waste a day of it,” Mr Porter said.
