The government’s budget for 2019/20 was delivered last night and contains only a handful of measures aimed at innovation technologies.
The government has pledged $3.5 million for Making Innovation Games National, a pilot project aimed at bringing together diverse groups such as SMEs, students and graduates to tackle the technology and digital challenges facing Australian businesses.
The government has made some investments to combat declining participation in STEM subjects in schools, including $1.5 million to enable the implementation of a digital outreach initiative aimed at engaging women in these subjects.
An additional $1.8 million in funding will be provided to the Science in Australia Gender Equality Initiative to advance gender equality in higher education and research institutions.
Questacon’s Education Outreach Program also received a $15.1 million increase to expand its programs that engage students in science and technology.
Although the government’s STEM and equality initiatives have been supported by industry, budget cuts and a lack of funding for future jobs have been criticized by industry experts.
The Morrison budget scrapped any innovation agenda with a $1.35 billion reduction in research and development tax incentives compared to the budget forecast.
That equates to $4 billion in cuts over the last two budgets, a far cry from former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s $1.1 billion innovation agenda in 2015.
MoneyPlace chief executive Stuart Stoyan said it was clear the Morrison government did not have a long-term growth agenda.
“With over $4 billion in cuts to R&D tax incentives over the last two budgets, you have to ask yourself, does the Morrison government have a long-term growth and innovation agenda? It seems former Prime Minister Turnbull’s innovation agenda has been long forgotten,” he said.
Mr Stoyan said Australia was losing the DNA that made us competitive and needed the Federal Government to show leadership.
“We really need leadership from the federal government to differentiate between start-ups that rely on tax incentives as their primary source of funding and companies that are simply looking for a cost savings and will do it anyway research,” he said.
FinTech Australia chief executive Rebecca Schot-Guppy said the budget announcements were a major blow to the startup and tech industry.
“Fintechs and startups will be disappointed by this budget. What happened to Australia to become the nation of innovation? she said.
Ms Schot-Guppy said the research and development tax incentive was important for the growth of the fintech ecosystem and its continued depletion would harm innovation.
“Ease of access is consistently seen as the number one issue for growing a fintech in Australia. Now, fintechs will be forced to compete with larger companies for a shrinking pool of capital. Given all the upheaval this policy has been through, this couldn’t be a worse outcome,” she said.
Assembly Payments co-founder and co-chief executive Victor Zheng echoed Ms Schot-Guppy’s sentiments and said Australia would not be able to compete in the global technology race.
“The R&D tax incentive has given us an incredible head start in the global race for innovation. How are we supposed to compete with Silicon Valley and China now? » he said.
