MICHAEL ROWLAND: Now, the Federal Government has this morning announced details of a major review into Australia's research and development performance. Joining me now from Parliament House is the Industry and Science Minister, Ed Husic. Minister, very good morning to you.

ED HUSIC, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND SCIENCE: Morning, Michael, how are you?

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Very good, thank you. So, what is wrong with Australia's R&D performance?

ED HUSIC: I think a lot of your viewers would know that ideas have changed the way we work, we do things, we live our lives. Translating those ideas into action, thinking about a new way of doing things and then actually making it happen. R&D helps drive that. Research and development in our country has just, over the last 20 years, just kept dropping, in particular since the global financial crisis. And that is a sign, given, as I said, ideas change the way we work, that is a sign about future, potentially future economic strength. We need to be able to invest in our ideas and our – in our R&D to grow our economy and do things better. And so, if the OECD is investing, on average – OECD countries – around 3 per cent of their GDP in R&D, and Australia's got 1.68 per cent investment levels, it says that we've got to do something differently.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: So, where does that investment need to come from? Governments, corporates, bit of both?

ED HUSIC: So, we've brought together a panel of people to drive this review into R&D. And it's led by the Chair of Tesla, Robyn Denholm, who's also been the Chief Operating Officer of Telstra. And she's also joined by the former Chief Scientist, Ian Chubb; by Professor Fiona Wood – her ideas led to the creation of a product called spray-on skin that helped survivors of the Bali disaster, who are affected by that, to regrow and heal; and Kate Cornick, who drives early-stage innovation. We've set that up because we want to bring industry, government, academia together. We can all pitch in to improve our performance and transform our future lives.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: One of the big challenges is that we have so many great researchers and scientists, as you well know, Minister, in this country, and it's our great joy to give a platform to them on this show. But linkages between universities in the research sector and corporate Australia are not as strong as they should be in terms of the transfer of talent and ideas. How do we go about improving those linkages?

ED HUSIC: Yeah, I think that's an important question. If you look at what's happened in our R&D performance, a lot of it has dropped because larger businesses, specifically multinationals, haven't maintained or uplifted investment in R&D. We've seen a big uplift in small and medium enterprises investing in R&D as a proportion of business investment, but that's probably in part due to multinationals and larger businesses vacating the field. It also reflects the composition of our industry. We have a lot of small businesses, not that many large. We've got to change that and drive investment in R&D. So, to answer your question, I think that whole notion of being able to also link in what's happening in our universities, being able to get industry to take that up is a big challenge and it will be a focus of this review because we have incredible potential, as you've rightly flagged in your question. So, many bright researchers that have come up with ideas that have literally changed the world, not just for Australians, but for others. We've got to be able to find a way to turn those into products.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: We have so many incredibly smart people here in Australia in that sector, as you say, Minister. Makes me very optimistic about the future for Australia. Hey, a couple of other issues before you go. One of our top stories, the government moving to give the ACCC greater powers to crack down on the big tech companies who stifle competition. So, they need reining in on this front, do they?

ED HUSIC: Well, I think there's a number of things. I mean, this is actually a classic case because I've watched this for years. If you look at payment platforms, the whole thing 10 years ago was, it was flagged that mobiles, as everyone knows now, will be used for so much of our lives, particularly to make payments. So, there are a lot of technology firms that did innovate in this space, and it shows that businesses that do think ahead can get ahead. But on that issue of getting ahead, and this is the big thing with the ACCC: when the big players try to entrench their lead and do so in ways that might cause concerns around competition, you've got to get on top of that. That's what we're trying to do as a government, by empowering the watchdog, the ACCC, to look into this. But again, I think there's a bit of chicken and egg stuff happening here. If we don't innovate, we get left behind, but we just don't want bad behaviour to entrench that lead.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: And finally, an issue that's affecting a lot of our viewers this morning. So many empty shelves in Woolworths supermarkets in NSW, Victoria, and the ACT, care of this nearly two week strike by workers at distribution centres. A lot of frustration by Australians out there. Is there anything the government can or will do on this front to try to bring this dispute to an end?

ED HUSIC: Well, I think obviously, we want – we've seen industrial disputation under our government drop, but we do appreciate that people feel the impact of that when it does occur. Clearly, we want both employers and workers to be able to sort these things out as quickly as they can, particularly given the time of year, and we hope that that would be the case.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Let's hope so. Ed Husic, thanks for your time this morning.

ED HUSIC: Thanks, Michael.