Australian Government establishing Innovation Precincts

Friday 22 Feb 2013

The Australian Government announced its Industry and Innovation Statement A Plan for Australian Jobs (Plan) on 17 February 2013. The Plan forms the Government’s response to the report of the Prime Minister’s Taskforce on Manufacturing.

The Plan details up to AU$1 billion in initiatives funded by the Government from a proposed change in the application of the existing R&D Tax Incentive. Very large businesses with annual turnovers of AU$20 billion or more will no longer be eligible for the R&D Tax Incentive but will be eligible to claim their R&D expenditure under general tax law provisions. Alternatively companies with a turnover of less than AU$20 million doing eligible R&D will be able to receive an uncapped fully refundable offset if they are in tax loss.

The Plan details the following three strategies:

1. Backing Australian industry to win more work at home - establish a new Australian Industry Participation Authority, legislating Australian Industry Participation (AIP) arrangements, and continued reforms to the anti-dumping system;
2. Supporting Australian industry to win new business abroad - invest more than AU$500 million in establishing up to 10 Industry Innovation Precincts bringing firms, research institutions, technology experts and business service providers together; and
3. Helping Australian small and medium businesses - a new AU$350 million round of the Innovation Investment Fund for innovative Australian start-up companies, provide focused support for SMEs with high growth potential, and extension of the Enterprise Connect program for SMEs.

Opportunities for the forest, wood and paper products industries are initially seen in aspects of the AIP arrangements, particularly local sourcing for wood and paper products for Government contracts and projects, implementing anti-dumping system reforms, accessing ’Industry Innovation Precincts’ capacity, and SME initiatives.

Source: AFPA Canopy

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