Alan Kelly (Labour)

Will the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment come to the House to discuss the important issue of technology investment? In the past couple of days, a number of firms have stated that growth rates will be below what the Government expects, although they are hopeful they will grow as we reach 2010-11. I am, however, concerned that support mechanisms for certain sectors of the economy may not be in place by then.

I refer, in particular, to the technology sector which is growing and needs support given the change in the economy. Three supports are required in this area. The first is education, in which there has been investment across the broad over a number of years. The second is communications infrastructure. I will not raise the issue now but we know that for the past ten years, broadband penetration and our policies in this area have been a disgrace and that we need to do something about that. We will support Senator Ross's Bill in this regard.

The third support is technology investment techniques. I was disappointed the Minister for Finance did not do something in this area in the last budget. I know there are various techniques for supporting businesses, such as the BES, but the time has come for significant technology investment techniques, through whatever tax concessions or means possible, to support small indigenous SME-type technology companies. We have heard too many stories about companies moving to Silicon Valley and elsewhere because they did not get supports in this country. It is time we woke up and supported these companies because otherwise the intellectual drain out of this country will continue. I do not want that to happen because we need these people. They are the entrepreneurs of the future.

I agree with Senator Fitzgerald regarding the length of time it takes to complete independent inquiries. On previous occasions I have referred to the report into the case of my near neighbour, Rebecca O'Malley. Every day this report remains unpublished is one day too many. There is potential for other women to suffer because the recommendations of the report have not been put in place. That is not good enough. The report must be published as soon as possible because Ms O'Malley is fed up and wants the matter to be dealt with.