QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Ms ROWLAND (Greenway—Attorney-General) (14:14): I thank the member for her interest in this important policy area and acknowledge her constructive engagement on this and many other issues. The Ambitious Australia report was a major undertaking with hundreds of submissions and extensive recommendations touching every aspect of Australia's research and development ecosystem.

The fact is that it will take time to deliver the reform that's required to make good on the ambition of that report, but the report presents a comprehensive set of recommendations, and this year's budget includes the first steps of the government's response. A strategic, well-functioning R&D sector is essential to delivering a future made in Australia, turning ideas into industry, strengthening resilience and supporting Australian workers and businesses.

Ambitious Australia makes clear that government funding alone cannot lift R&D performance. Industry, universities and the private sector all have a role to play. There is $2 billion of new spending on R&D in this recent budget, bringing the government's spend over the forwards on R&D to over $39.1 billion.

We're establishing the National Resilience and Science Council to better coordinate and align public innovation investments with Australia's economic objectives. We're strengthening Australian science capability, critical to delivering a future made in Australia, with $1.5 billion invested in science and innovation, including in the CSIRO, the National Measurement Institute, the Australian Space Agency and the Square Kilometre Array.

We're backing Australian researchers and making Australia a destination for clinical trials with $589 million of investment so Australians can obtain early access to life-changing medicines and treatments. This includes increasing disbursements from the Medical Research Future Fund, growing each year from 2026-27 up to $1 billion a year by 2030-31. The government is focused on making sure that every dollar spent on R&D has significant scale and impact.

To that end, we recently concluded treaty negotiations on Horizon Europe, which will give Australian organisations access to the world's largest pooled research fund in 2027, worth $155 billion. We know we can always do more, but it will take a collective effort, and industry and the research sector each have a role to play. That's why, on top of increasing public investment in science, the first stage of our response to Ambitious Australia has focused on better targeting incentives for business to invest in Australian innovation and improving coordination of our R&D efforts.