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Legislation and Parliamentary Matters

Greens to back R&D

August 29th, 2014

Large businesses have a new friend in the Greens who are set to block the Abbot government’s plan to slash R&D tax breaks by $1.1 billion. The unlikely allies have made nice in the face of the potential loss of millions of dollars to Australian businesses. The ALP have also jumped on the band wagon in support of the Greens, who are lobbying minor party senators to oppose the savings measure. Labor’s amendment would allow small to medium businesses to […]

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Green’s resurrect quarterly credits system

August 27th, 2014

This morning, in a bold move to resurrect the quarterly credits concept, the Leader of the Greens, Christine Milne moved amendments in the Senate to the Tax Laws Amendment (Research and Development) Bill 2013.  As part of this move, the Greens will also aim to strike out Government plans to cut R&D incentives for large companies. It is important to note that the original Tax Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No. 4) Bill 2013 established a scheme for making refundable tax offsets available in […]

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Australian Innovation System Senate Inquiry

July 31st, 2014

On 18 March 2014 the Senate referred the inquiry into Australia’s innovation system to the Senate Economics References Committee. The Economics Legislation Committee inquires allow interested parties to submit their views on the Australian Innovation System. Swanson Reed’s submission focused on key areas of policy and investment in order to ensure Australia remains globally significant in an increasingly competitive world. Our key points are illustrated below: With the rise of Asia, a well executed innovation strategy involving full and fair stakeholder […]

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Commission Audit targeted by agricultural R&D

May 13th, 2014

The Commission Audit report, which examined Australian Government finances, has recommended that public funding of agricultural R&D in Australia be significantly reduced. The recommendations made by the report suggested that the amount of government funding be reduced to better reflect the mix of private and public benefits. It was suggested that the current cap on dollar for dollar matching of industry contributions by the government (which is currently set at 0.5 percent of gross value of production) should be halved […]

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