By Peter Roberts The Treasurer Jim Chalmers has opted for gradualist reform of the much criticised Productivity Commission, appointing a former Labor Party staffer to be the commission’s new chair. Chalmers appointed Chris Barrett (pictured) as the new Chair and said ‘to build a stronger economy, we need to build stronger economic institutions – and…
Public hearings for the inquiry on developing advanced manufacturing in Australia will be held on Tuesday at 9:00 am in Brisbane, examining the health, robotics and space sectors. According to a statement on Monday, the House Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Resources will hear from stakeholders representing those sectors on “what is needed to…
This week’s report from the Productivity Commission targeted Australia’s energy policies as a form of industry assistance – anathema to the dry economic policy group. Here, Roy Green finds the Commission out of touch with Australia’s needs. This is another tiresomely predictable and formulaic report from the Productivity Commission. Ironically it takes issue with the…
Applications opened on Tuesday morning for the Plastics Technology stream of the federal Recycling Modernisation Fund, offering grant funding of between $1 million and $20 million each to projects concerned with hard-to-recycle plastics. According to a statement from federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek, up to $60 million in total would support projects including: advanced recycling…
Support for 32 projects under the National Industry PhD Program has been announced, with $5 million awarded to industry-based projects in materials engineering, biomedical engineering and other research fields. According to assistant education minister Anthony Chisholm, who announced the funded projects on Monday, these would “enhance the world-class research being undertaken” in universities as well…
The federal government has released a discussion paper and is seeking feedback on how the upcoming Industry Growth Program should operate. The $392 million IGP was a surprise inclusion in the May budget, and will replace the Entrepreneur’s Programme. According to its web page the IGP will provide advice and grants to SMEs to commercialise…
