I think Attila has been a little modest for a Vice Chancellor to pop up on the stage at an event like this after having been awarded University of the Year, without mention is very modest indeed.

I want to acknowledge a few people here, Melinda and the team from CEDA, you just do such important work and thank you for the opportunity to say a few things today.

I really enjoyed that last panel, a friendly colleague, Cath Bowtell, but also Arthur Sinodinos, who, as a former Minister for Industry and Science, one of my favourites, but also his continued role, and recently in the United States, on Australia's behalf, so very good.

I want to acknowledge fellow panellists, Dr. Kate Cornick, who is now the Chief Executive Officer of the Tech Council of Australia, but has played an important role in industry and innovation and research and development policy, and Jenny Dodd, the Chief Executive Officer of TAFE Directors Australia.

It's great to see all of you here.

I want to just take a few minutes to set out my approach to how the research and development system and reforms that we have made, are situated in the context of Future Made in Australia, trying to make sure that our research and development system drives real Australian resilience and real Australian economic opportunity.

Of course, earlier this year, the panel chaired by Robyn Denholm and that included Kate Cornick in that leadership panel, Ian Chubb and Fiona Wood set out how to make Australia stronger and smarter and safer.

Their report, Ambitious Australia, we manage by repetition, to vanish in people's minds the old name of the report, which was SERD, which is one of the least attractive kind of names for reporting system that I've ever heard.

Ambitious Australia is just that, it's a smart framework of bringing together bright minds through to industrial strength.

What I'm carefully working on now, is driving that coordination and the focus of Australia's national effort toward our national priorities.

To bring all of the levers of my portfolio together and work with colleagues, industry investors, the states and territories, scientists, and staff – to deliver a Future Made in Australia.

The current global energy shocks and supply chain disruptions, underscore that rationale for national resilience and Australian industrial capability.

It is straightforward, sadly, to chart Australia's resilience and industrial decline.

Falling industrialisation to the lowest levels of industrial self-sufficiency in the OECD, precipitously declining economic complexity, the lowest level of productivity growth in our history in the decade to 2022.

All of those things related to each other, it is harder, though, to chart Australia's way out.

That does require all of us to lift. Advanced economies with innovation and commercialisation success don't just pump public funds into research and development and hope for the best.

They have manufacturing and industrial and research and development systems that reinforce each other. Where firms invest in research and development and create pathways to commercialisation.

Without that, Australian research has nowhere to land.

Innovation doesn't scale, and there are no pathways for future critical industry, critical minerals, quantum, artificial intelligence, new energy generation. And without basic research, there's no applied research.

Without any industry, there's no advanced manufacturing or tech jobs.

That's why I've been focused over the last twelve months on securing Australia's current industrial capability, so that we can scale up into future capability, securing Australia's heavy industry across steel, aluminium, zinc, lead and copper. Building our critical minerals production capability too.

Strengthening the National Reconstruction Fund, so that it can back more firms from critical minerals processing to quantum technologies.

Investing more than $1 billion in this Budget in science and innovation.

And that of course includes the CSIRO, the National Measurement Institute, the Australian Space Agency, the Square Kilometre Array Project and our association to Horizon Europe.

And taking initial steps that were set out in Ambitious Australia. Better incentives for venture capital investments and a more focused Research and Development Tax Incentive.

As announced last week, the 50% capital gains discount for small businesses, will be extended to those with a turnover of up to $10 million instead of $2 million.

We'll consult on the design of the 50% capital gains tax discount for early-stage investors, including founders and employee share scheme participants.

And underpinning all of our effort, across all of the elements of the research and development and industrial system, a new National Science and Resilience Council to drive impact, coherence, and scale in the national interest.

With the investor front door now located in my Department, I'm focused on the projects that will shift national prosperity and national resilience.

To get there I'm driven by four things.

Firstly coordination.

Bringing together the National Science and Resilience Council, the National Reconstruction Fund, the Investor Front Door, our other special investment vehicles, the National Science Priorities, and the reform of the CSIRO.

Ensuring that there is a pipeline of research and development to industry and making sure that effort is squarely focused on maximum impact for Australia.

Artificial intelligence.

Not as just a taker of other people's technology, but as a maker of technology – that means having more of the technology stack onshore here in Australia, from critical minerals to data centres to specialist chip component manufacturing.

It also means shaping the norms and delivering training here in the Australian interest and building Australia's industrial applications of artificial intelligence.

Combining our strengths in manufacturing, engineering, and digital technology, embedding artificial intelligence into services, science, the public sector, and the factory floor.

Collaboration.

As has been indicated, I think, in the discussion so far this morning, collaboration with middle power partners, shaping the norms and the rules, in this case, of artificial intelligence, through partnerships led by the new Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute.

And tapping into international partnerships like Horizon Europe, applications open in 2027 for Australian research teams to access its $155 billion research fund.

And finally regional impact.

For the major industrial hubs across the country that are experiencing significant change because of global upheaval and energy system change.

Making sure that we collectively drive real industrial growth, create well-paid jobs, and new opportunities for new generations of workers and their kids in our outer suburbs and in our industrial regions.

Our long-term prosperity and our security and our resilience rests in large part on Australia's capacity to use our scientific and research strengths to meet our future needs.

Turning Australian discovery into a stronger and more resilient economy, and capturing future opportunity, through quantum, artificial intelligence, critical minerals production, and all of the other technological work that we are going to have to do together to deliver a future made in Australia.

I'm really looking forward to the discussions and the questions and to the views of my colleagues on the panel. Thanks very much.