The Australian Information Industry Association has commended the breadth of recommendations in support of building Australia’s innovation capability through education and training in a new plan released by Innovation and Science Australia.
AIIA, the nation’s peak member body for the ICT industry, said today the plan strengthened the potential to strengthen Australia's innovation culture.
“AIIA welcomes the release of the report titled ‘Australia 2030: Prosperity through Innovation’ by Innovation and Science Australia, the Government’s science advisory body. By drawing together the key elements of education, industry, government, research and development (R&D), and culture, the plan takes a holistic view of the innovation ecosystem,” said Rob Fitzpatrick, chief executive of the AIIA.
“AIIA commends the breadth of recommendations in support of building Australia’s innovation capability through education and training, and specifically the focus on science, technology, education and maths skills to better position Australians for jobs of the future, as well as gender diversity in the workplace.
{loadposition peter}“AIIA supports the focus on SMEs and the recommendations to improve their access to export markets, and the establishment of a specific procurement target of 33% of contracts (by dollar value) being awarded to Australian SMEs by 2022.
“We are pleased to see the report recognises the need for growth in Australia’s digital capabilities in the areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning; continued momentum on government open data initiatives; focus on innovation in government procurement; and endorsement of the role of the Digital Transformation Agency in driving digital transformation across government. Combined with the emphasis on skills development, these are critical activities in support of a holistic innovation strategy.
“What is of concern, however, is the specific call out of software innovation as falling short of the government’s long standing R&D Tax Incentive program criteria. This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of R&D in an ICT context.
“While the government wants to encourage organisations to embrace and innovate, leveraging new technologies to build innovative world class products and services (as targeted by the first NISA statement), software innovation is essentially not covered by our one major government funded innovation programme – the R&D Tax Incentive. An apparent shift to ‘lab-based’ software claims, is not a position supported by the law that was enacted in 2011. AIIA is keen to discuss this shift in position in more detail with the government.”
Fitzpatrick said that while AIIA acknowledge some softening of the government’s proposed R&D Intensity Test, recommended by the government’s 2016 Review of the R&D Tax Incentive, “the concept of such a test remains flawed. It will create uncertainty for companies undertaking R&D that could potentially result in them incurring the cost of compliance before knowing if they meet the threshold to apply for the Incentive at the end of the financial year".
“Many of our member organisations rely on skilled migrants to meet short-term skill demands. While we acknowledge the report mentions the need to continuously review current immigration skill categories, the ICT industry remains concerned that major shortages in ICT are still not being sufficiently addressed and that the pipeline for ICT skills remains bleak in the short- to medium-term.”