INNOVATION AMBASSADORS ADDED TO GOVERNMENT’S BROKEN PROMISES LIST
01-June-2010
Another day, another broken promise from the Rudd Government – this time over the funding of a science and innovation initiative.
At a Senate Estimates hearing on Monday, Industry Minister Kim Carr begrudgingly accepted that Labor has completely neglected its commitment to fund a group of so-called ‘science and innovation ambassadors’.
In Labor’s 2007 innovation election policy statement, it was declared that $5 million in funding would be used “to establish a stronger Innovation Ambassadors program with a broader remit than that of the Innovation Australia Board”.
But, under questioning at the Estimates hearing, Senator Carr had no idea what had happened to the commitment.
To make matters worse, it was initially suggested that the scrapping of the $5 million in promised funding was the former Coalition Government’s fault.
It was only when a copy of Labor’s 2007 election policy was produced that a clearly embarrassed Senator Carr finally had to fess up.