Mr HARTSUYKER (2:40 PM) —My question is addressed to the Minister for Education, Science and Training. Would the minister outline for the House the measures the government is taking to ensure that taxpayers get the very best return for public investment in research? Is the minister aware of any other policies in this area?

Dr NELSON (Minister for Education, Science and Training) —Thank you, Mr Speaker. Congratulations, firstly, on your re-election to the esteemed position of Speaker. Congratulations also to the member for Cowper on not only his election to the parliament to follow in the fine footsteps of his predecessor but also a great maiden speech this morning. The Howard government is completely committed to seeing that the 21st century for Australia is built very much on a research and information culture. To that end last year the government committed $2.9 billion to the Backing Australia's Ability program, which comprises a series of measures which support research, research infrastructure, incentives for industry in business and the commercialisation of ideas. Included in that is a doubling of the budget for the Australian Research Council over the next five years, a further $736 million.

Two weeks ago I announced that one-third of that ARC budget—as I said, which will be doubled over the next five years—will be committed fully to four research priorities. They will be nano- and biomaterials, genome and phenome research, complex and intelligent systems and photon science and technology. The priority research areas have been adopted by the government after an exhaustive process, which involved 60 eminent scientists, the Chief Scientist and the board of the Australian Research Council—a process which lasted some four to six months. Finally, the expert committee recommended to the government that four research priorities be funded.

Some of the criticism that has come to the government from members of the opposition suggested that in some way this was inappropriate. In fact, the recently retired Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canberra said in the Australian newspaper on 6 February this year:

He went on further to say:

The member for Cowper asks me about other policies. There are other policies, and in one sense there are not other policies. The Labor spokespeople have started the year where we left them. I think the Treasurer would remember this: the member for Dawson very kindly pointed out to us last year that the Labor Party are like a cattle dog in the back of a truck. They run from one side of the truck to the other, depending on the slightest attraction which seems to take their attention. Labor's shadow spokesperson has criticised me on behalf of the government for picking priorities. The shadow spokesperson for Labor has said:

That is from a media release on 29 January. Firstly, one of the ARC's priorities—in fact, one of its charter objectives—is to:

· contribute to the development of a coordinated approach to setting priorities in research ...

It makes you wonder how the Labor Party can attack the government for setting research priorities, when there is only one policy document on their web site when you visit it, and it is Knowledge Nation. If you go to page 37 of the hard copy, Knowledge Nation says:

Wait for this—it says:

On this side we have no trouble picking winners: we seem to have chosen one in our Prime Minister. But the Labor Party obviously has problems with these four priorities. I challenge the Australian Labor Party to nominate which of those four priorities it would not fund, particularly when you consider that Knowledge Nation said the following ought to be priorities:

· the development of industries in emerging fields such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, information and communications technology, and environmental management—

Apart from anything else, environmental issues and dryland salinity and a whole range of other things important to the member for Cowper and many people on this side will be funded under the research that will be covered in these four priorities.