Mrs PHILLIPS (Gilmore) (12:04): I rise today to speak in support of the Education Legislation Amendment (Startup Year and Other Measures) Bill 2023, and I am excited, because this bill delivers on yet another vital election commitment.
This bill proposes important changes to the Higher Education Support Act that will create a new form of assistance under the Higher Education Loan Program, HELP. This new form of assistance will be called SY-HELP. This bill will provide support to final year undergraduate students, current postgraduate students and recent graduates. Importantly, it will support them to participate in higher education based accelerator programs. SY-HELP loans will help create a pipeline of inspiring entrepreneurs who will shape a diverse and competitive economy.
Investment in Australia's future entrepreneurs and business innovation leaders will help build a smarter, stronger and more innovative economy that attracts and retains talent. This will help keep our economy innovative and competitive on the local, regional and global scale. It is essential that we equip our students with the skills, experiences and capabilities to realise their own entrepreneurial endeavours. This in turn will support our country in achieving our national priorities.
This bill will allow higher education providers such as the University of Wollongong in my electorate to develop student skills and create a pipeline of aspiring talent that will shape a diverse, competitive economy across the whole country. Through this increased focus on university accelerators, students will have access to education that will advance their own careers and encourage an innovation driven Australia. These programs will enable our future entrepreneurs to receive the support and confidence they need to remain in Australia and found their startups.
We have smart and innovative people in Gilmore and across Australia, and this bill will support them. With initiatives such as this bill, which clearly signal this government's endorsement of innovation, I'm proud to support an innovative culture change. I'm also pleased to say that this bill has been carefully developed. An extensive stakeholder engagement process with universities, industry and students has highlighted the appetite for expanded accelerator programs. Programs such as the one this bill will support not only enable students to gain important skill sets desirable to industry and future employers but also provide valuable community connections and networks for students.
On average, across OECD countries, young firms account for approximately 20 per cent of employment and create almost half of all new jobs. That's massive, and that is something the Albanese Labor government wants to continue to support. The bill proposes the establishment of the Startup Year program, which will expand the use of the HELP system to include higher education based incubator and accelerator programs. In Australia, startups have a high impact on the creation of new jobs, and the Startup Year program will work to support this new growth. Supporting startup creation and the entrepreneurial skill set will play a role in growing productivity and incomes, and will build a workforce with the skills and capabilities to adapt and thrive in the future labour market. From mid-2023, Startup Year will provide up to 2,000 income-contingent loans each year for final year undergraduate students, current postgraduate students and recent graduates to undertake a business-focused accelerator program based at an Australian higher education provider.
I've seen innovation like this in action in my electorate of Gilmore on the New South Wales South Coast at the Shoalhaven Industry 4.0 Hub. In 2021 I and the honourable member for Chifley, Ed Husic, the then shadow minister for industry, toured the Industry 4.0 Hub together. We were in opposition then, but we went to the Industry 4.0 Hub to see and learn firsthand the many benefits of 4.0 and to gain initial feedback on a potential startup year. I don't think Ed will mind me saying that he was quite impressed with the Industry 4.0 Hub, and rightly so; it is an impressive place.
The Industry 4.0 Hub is located at the University of Wollongong's Shoalhaven campus, not too far away from my office in Nowra. The hub is a collaborative environment open to students, industry and entrepreneurs. This cutting-edge facility enables industry to access innovative technologies, equipment and technical expertise through partnerships and collaborations, delivering real-world impacts. The hub is a public space open to the community, and it helps both new and experienced innovators create and meet like-minded people.
The Industry 4.0 Hub serves as a key enabler to translate research and development into commercial outcomes that are driven by innovation and excellence. A great example of this innovation from last year is the hub's collaboration with Verbotics. The Industry 4.0 Hub provided a space for Verbotics, a startup based in Wollongong, to collaborate with Universal Robots. The collaboration worked on a project to automatically program robots for welding applications and has the potential to streamline many manufacturing processes. If you'd like to see an example of this automated welding in action, you can visit the Verbotics website—how fantastic is that! The Industry 4.0 Hub gave an ambitious group of people the space to integrate improved software into an automated welding process.
I'd invite any business owner in Australia to get in touch with the Industry 4.0 Hub team to see some brilliant innovations from the New South Wales South Coast—who knows, they might be developing something perfect for you right now. And it happens. John, who owns the small business Smith's BBQs in the town of Temora in the New South Wales Riverina, engaged the hub to see if it could help his business. He attended a workshop, and as a result of the workshop John purchased and integrated a robot arm into his workflow. John said:
UOW's Industry 4.0 Hub in Nowra has been a vital source of information, training and help with the introduction of robotics into my business. We at Smith's BBQs will be using Collaborative Robots to help fold the metal BBQ parts and to weld.
How good is that? Like I said, this happened right down the road from my office in Nowra. That's just one example of what initiatives like the Industry 4.0 Hub can develop.
I wholeheartedly support initiatives that inspire and enable innovation, which is why I'm so supportive of this bill. It's a great idea and it will be a well administered program. Student and provider eligibility for SY-HELP assistance is defined in line with existing types of help assistance. SY-HELP will operate in a similar manner to existing assistance, with a student incurring a HELP debt on a predetermined census date. Those are just a few details about the program.
The details are important, but programs like this are, at their core, about the bigger picture. As we embrace this new era, we must also recognise the challenges that come with it. The rapid pace of technological advancement means that we need to constantly adapt and stay up to date with the latest developments in our respective fields. We must remain open-minded and willing to learn, not just from our own experiences but also from the experiences of others. One way to stay ahead of the curve is to collaborate with others. Whether it's partnering with other organisations, joining a professional network or simply exchanging ideas with colleagues, collaboration allows us to tap into a wider pool of knowledge and resources. By working together we can achieve more than we ever could alone. Collaborative processes have the potential to create initiatives and outcomes that are far greater than the sum of their parts. We need to be constantly looking for ways to improve our products and services and to create new ones that better meet the needs of consumers and businesses. This requires a willingness to take risks, to experiment and to embrace failure as a necessary step in the process of discovery.
Of course, innovation is not just about creating new products and services; it's also about finding new and better ways of doing things. There are plenty of great examples of this on the New South Wales South Coast. For example, just last month I went on a tour of the Alkath factory at South Nowra. Alkath comprises Global Defence Solutions, Mellori and Resilience Logistic Solutions. Alkath is a company in my electorate that produces innovative solutions which help Australia's military and emergency services personnel achieve their goals. It's quite a remarkable business, and it is most certainly innovating to create meaningful solutions. They provide mobile catering solutions, mobile hygiene systems, lighting and power distribution systems and air-conditioning, delivering core capability across the intelligence community and more. Among the many things they create that are particularly impressive are deployable infrastructure modules. I was taken through the factory at Nowra and saw firsthand modules that could be built into many things, one of which is a fully functional mobile hospital. There was even a container that could house a fully functional mobile MRI machine. These infrastructure solutions are used by defence in strategic deployments, but it's not only defence that can utilise them; they can also be used by emergency service workers. These resources can help our emergency service workers and volunteers to more effectively respond to crisis situations such as natural disasters. I don't have to remind anyone of the devastation of natural disasters on the New South Wales South Coast and in Australia as a whole. That's another example of innovation in my electorate of Gilmore: a 100 per cent Australian owned company providing innovative solutions to help keep Australia moving forward.
There are many more ways people will be able to innovate in the future, and the Albanese Labor government want to support that. This bill will give many Australians the opportunity to innovate and create. This might mean streamlining operations, adopting new technologies or rethinking our business models. Whatever form it takes, innovation is essential if we want to stay competitive in today's fast-paced world. Perhaps the most important thing we can do to succeed in this new era is to stay focused on our values. Technology may change, but our core principles should remain the same. We need to continue to prioritise things like honesty, integrity and respect, and to use these values as our guide posts as we navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead. We are living in a time of incredible change and innovation. The choices we make today will shape the world we live in tomorrow. If we stay open-minded, collaborate with others, innovate and stay true to our values, we can make the most of this new era and create a brighter future for ourselves and for generations to come. Startup Year will assist educating our future innovators and business leaders. I commend this bill to the House.
