Mr LEE (5:51 PM) —These amendments contain the extra $4 million per annum for the Research Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities Scheme, which was announced in the year 2000 budget. Even after this extra $4 million has been added to the funding for this program, funding for research infrastructure is still going to fall by $20 million from the year 2000 to the year 2002. First of all, I would ask the parliamentary secretary whether she wishes to challenge that claim. If you look at table 1.3 on page 34 of your own department's Higher education report for the 2000 to 2002 triennium, you will see that it currently indicates that in 1999 we had $115 million allocated for research infrastructure and, after adding the extra $4 million for the year 2000, we have only $108 million. It indicates that for the year 2001 you have budgeted $105 million and for the year 2002 you have budgeted only $86 million. While the extra $4 million a year is no doubt welcome for higher education research infrastructure, the figure is still collapsing. I say to the parliamentary secretary: how can we hope to ensure that Australian researchers have modern, up-to-date equipment if we are investing less money year by year in research infrastructure? The extra $4 million a year is fine, but if there is still a decline of $20 million a year surely that means our best researchers are going to have to get by with equipment that is held together with sticky tape and sealing wax. That is just not good enough if Australia is to secure the high value, high wage jobs of the future.

In many ways, the companies that invest in R&D will be the ones that can offer the most secure jobs for their employees. In the same way, the countries that invest in education, training and research will be the ones that secure the best jobs for the future. If we have a federal government actually cutting investment in university research infrastructure, how can we expect anything other than a decline in the number of new inventions, in the level of innovation and in the number of companies that will be able to successfully develop new opportunities for Australia in years to come?

We are going to face a massive intellectual property deficit if we continue on our current track. Public research is declining because of the $1 billion in cuts this government has made to higher education. Private research and development has declined for each of the last three years. For the first time since the Australian Bureau of Statistics has been collecting the figures, we have a decline in private R&D expenditure. If public research is going backwards and private R&D is going backwards, how can Australia expect to become a knowledge nation? How can we hope to ensure that kids like the kids in the gallery tonight get the chance to finish school and perhaps become scientists, medical researchers or computer programmers? These opportunities will open up only if Australia is investing more, not less, in areas like education, training and research. I once again challenge the parliamentary secretary to indicate whether she wishes to dispute my claim that there is a $20 million decline in investment in university research infrastructure after the extra $4 million in the budget.