Justin Hendry

The Albanese government is set to tip up to $500 million into a co-investment fund that will back local companies developing dual-use technologies aligned with AUKUS Pillar II priorities, as it looks to deepen ties with private capital. Defence Industry minister Pat Conroy on Wednesday unveiled the Advanced Capabilities Investment (ACI) Fund to finance advanced defence capabilities, targeting at least $1 billion in combined public-private capital. The fund has been in the works for around two years, with Defence having previous canvassed investor interest in a co-investment vehicle to fund local dual-use technology companies aligned with its Sovereign Defence Industry Priorities.

Australia’s biggest banks want Apple and other global platforms to help foot the bill for maintaining core payments infrastructure, saying the current system gives big tech a free ride as digital wallet transactions continue to surge.Ahead of a federal inquiry into payments competition next week, the banks have appealed to lawmakers for a more level playing field to address a “structural imbalance” they say has been growing since Apple Pay first arrived in Australia more than a decade ago.The call to arms has been prompted by a Reserve Bank proposal to cap interchange fees – the transaction fees charged between banks for processing credit and debit card payments – at 0.3 per cent.

Sometimes a grassroots initiative can achieve lofty ambitions -- all the way to low earth orbit. What began as an effort by the Sunshine Coast Council to attract high-value, technology-based jobs has evolved into a collaborative initiative spanning schools, industry, researchers and government, all working to build a sustainable geospatial capability in the region. The initiative’s origins stretch back to the early 2010s, when Council began developing plans to connect the region to the world via a high-speed underwater fibre cable. That cable became operational in 2020, attracting interest from data-intensive industries, and significant investment from data centre operator NEXTDC. A second subsea cable, delivered as a partnership between Sunshine Coast Council, NEXTDC and Google, is scheduled to come online in 2026, giving the Sunshine Coast Australia’s fastest direct data connection to the United States. 

The Australian Taxation Office has called in KPMG to support its enterprise resources planning overhaul, handing the consulting giant a near $2 million contract just months after securing $61 million in funding to develop a second pass business case. The seven-month contract, published earlier this month but offering few details on the scope of the work, builds on an ERP modernisation strategy, future state design and roadmap delivered by rival firm Deloitte mid-last year. Listed on the Commonwealth procurement website AusTender as for “ERP products and service solutions”, the contract also includes two options to extend through to April next year.

Industry minister Tim Ayres has given the strongest signal yet that the federal government intends to re-organise Australia’s R&D system around mission-led priorities. But he has stressed that a whole-of-government response to the most comprehensive review of the R&D system in 20 years is still some time away – and that it will not arrive in a single Budget. The minister also foreshadowed that “challenging debate” over some of the report’s key recommendations lies ahead, with proposed changes to the R&D Tax Incentive likely to be a key battleground with industry.

A $1 billion interest-free loan program born out of last year’s tariff chaos is being repurposed to help Australian businesses weather the economic fallout from the Middle East conflict. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will use his address to the National Press Club on Thursday to apply the sub-fund of the National Reconstruction Fund to a new wave of turbulence and cohort of businesses,  positioning it as the government’s latest “shock absorber”. It comes almost a year to the day that the Economic Resilience Program was first announced by Mr Albanese in response to the Trump Administration’s 10 per cent tariff on exports to the United States.

Startups say they have been left in the dark after the federal government quietly delayed the next round of grants through its $36 million Critical Technologies Challenge Program without explanation. The three-week setback has left hopeful recipients of up to $5 million in funding uncertain about the future of the scheme, which has so far delivered $23.6 million in grants to more than two dozen research and industry consortiums. Launched in 2024, the Critical Technologies Challenge (CTC) Program exists to solve national challenges like optimising energy networks, improving medical imaging and reducing the impact of mining and mineral processing using quantum technologies.

Digital Transformation Agency head Chris Fechner has cast doubt on federal adoption of NSW-style ‘if not, why not’ procurement reforms to boost SME participation, warning that free trade agreements could complicate any such move. But he says the government is already exploring other avenues to boost opportunities for small to medium-sized enterprises, including by lowering the threshold for eligibility in single seller arrangements.In the latest episode of Delivery: A GovTech Podcast, to be released later on Tuesday, Mr Fechner said the government's digital advisor is also continuing to action reforms to define an Australian business.

Tax breaks for companies undertaking R&D will be overhauled and a new refundability scheme for loss-making startups introduced as part of budget push to lift private investment and encourage “sensible risk taking”. The R&D Tax Incentive reforms, which include lifting the cap to $200 million, are alone expected to unlock $400 million in additional investment by startups and scaleups each year, with other caps on venture capital tax incentives also to be lifted. But Tuesday’s budget will also make it harder to claim some activities under the RDTI from July 2028, delivering a $650 million saving to government after the cost of the scheme that has grown 70 per cent in just five years.

Australia has spent years asking how to produce more world-class healthcare innovation. A more urgent question is now emerging: why are so few of those innovations making it into Australian hospitals? This disconnect sits at the centre of the Australian Medtech Manufacturing Alliance's Better Health Made Here agenda – an industry push to ensure the country’s growing medtech and biotech capability translates not just into patents, trials and export wins, but into tangible improvements for Australian patients and a stronger domestic health economy. It is a challenge Australia is hardly alone in confronting. But according to industry leaders, Australia’s version of the problem is particularly frustrating because the upstream ingredients are increasingly in place.