Parliament House
Canberra, ACT
One of the most productive and cost-effective ways to build Australia’s research and innovation capacity is through collaboration.
Collaboration can help us make the most of our finite resources, overcome fragmentation, and achieve critical mass.
It can facilitate the transfer of knowledge and skills.
It can take people out of their organisational and disciplinary comfort zones and lead them in new creative directions.
And it can make it easier for people to tackle the really tough problems by spreading risk.
That’s why the Cooperative Research Centre Program is so important.
The CRC Program was one of the late John Button’s many fine legacies to this country.
It has served us well for seventeen years, and it is my hope that it will continue to do so for many years to come.
A working group headed by Professor Mary O’Kane has just completed a review of the program.
The headline conclusion of that review is that “there is still a need for a large scale program bringing research providers and end-users together to solve roadblock problems”.
Professor O’Kane and her colleagues have made several recommendations for increasing the program’s flexibility, sharpening its focus, and furthering the pursuit of excellence.
The Government will respond to these recommendations in its innovation White Paper later this year.
CRC for Rail Innovation
In the meantime, the Australian Government has committed $182 million to the CRC Program in 2008-09. There will be forty-nine active CRCs this year.
The CRC for Rail Innovation is one of them.
The Commonwealth is investing $21 million in the centre.
This will leverage a total of $100 million in funding from government, industry and universities.
This new CRC will help us meet Australia’s future transport needs by improving rail performance and reducing costs.
More efficient rail equals more efficient national supply chains, and that ultimately means stronger economic growth.
The centre is casting its net wide.
It addresses the needs of rail customers, rail industry end-users, and rail industry suppliers.
Its research programs focus on:
• economic, social, and environment sustainability;
• operations;
• engineering; and
• safety.
And it is seeking solutions for bulk freight, inter-modal freight and passenger rail.
According to one estimate, the long-term gains to companies applying the centre’s research could reach $6.5 billion.
Rail transport
Australians have got used to the personal mobility, the access to goods and services, and the increased life opportunities that modern transport makes possible.
They expect to go on enjoying those benefits, and I think that expectation is perfectly reasonable.
So how do we keep people and freight moving in a low-carbon world?
One way is by switching to rail.
People have already cottoned on to the idea that lifting rail’s modal share can help us reduce transport costs, congestion, and greenhouse gas emissions.
The freight task in Australia is expected to double by 2020, and an increasing amount of that freight will be carried by rail.
Passenger rail travel is also growing – quite dramatically in my home city of Melbourne – as fuel prices rise.
To maintain these trends we need to increase investment – not just in rail, but in all the elements that make up an integrated transport system.
That’s why the Government has established Infrastructure Australia and why we are investing $3.2 billion in nation-building road and rail projects across the country this financial year.
The rail projects include improved connections to Port Botany and the Port of Melbourne, and a study of inland rail options between Melbourne and Brisbane.
In addition, the Commonwealth-owned Australian Rail Track Corporation – which is a member of this CRC –will spend $780 million on major projects in 2008-09.
The CRC for Rail Innovation will help us maximise our return on these investments.
Rail CRC
As we launch this new CRC, it is also fitting that we remember the achievements of the CRC for Railway Engineering and
Technologies.
The Rail CRC – as it was known – wound up last year.
But its spirit lives on in the spin-off company – Rail Innovation Australia – established to take its technologies and intellectual property to the market.
Rail CRC success stories in research and commercialisation include:
• the FreightMiser system, which helps long-haul train drivers minimise fuel consumption without losing time; and
• the ScheduleMiser system, which keeps networks running smoothly by permitting train plans and timetables to be revised in real time and on demand.
These and other Australian rail innovations are generating international interest.
That makes it even more disappointing that Australia’s own record of supporting home-grown rail technologies and local manufacturing has been uneven.
It’s good to see the Victorian government buying VLocity trains, which are built in Dandenong by Bombardier Transportation with 71 per cent Australian content.
Nevertheless, we could be doing a lot more.
Queensland Rail and the Rail Corporation New South Wales are certainly doing their bit by joining this CRC.
They are setting an example that rail authorities around the country would do well to follow.
The future
The CRC for Rail Innovation will build on the foundations laid by its predecessor.
It brings end-users from the private and public sectors together with university research providers in four states.
Their collaboration promises improvements in rolling stock, materials, logistics and safety that will benefit the entire country – not just economically, but socially and environmentally as well.
Efficient rail will be an integral part of Australia’s transport future.
It is certainly vital to our export future.
The CRC for Rail Innovation has important work to do, and I’m sure it will be equal to the challenge.
It is a pleasure to launch it here today.