{"id":33823,"date":"2023-10-20T14:31:55","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/government-denies-nicta-is-facing-the-axe-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:31:55","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:31:55","slug":"government-denies-nicta-is-facing-the-axe-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/government-denies-nicta-is-facing-the-axe-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Government denies NICTA is facing the axe &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"445\" height=\"352\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/l_nicta-445.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"l_nicta-445\"\/><\/div>\n<p>The federal government has denied that National ICT Australia, the nation\u2019s flagship IT research and innovation program, is to be killed off despite referring to the \u201cphasing out\u201d of the scheme in last night\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The budget paper submission by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dbcde.gov.au\/__data\/assets\/pdf_file\/0004\/163417\/COMPLETE_BCDE_PBS.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy<\/a> showed that the ICT Centre of Excellence, which funds NICTA, will see its funding drop from $22.5 million to $21.4 million in 2014-15 before having its funding ended under its current agreement.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The paper states: \u201cTotal program expenses decrease in 2013-14 and across the forward years reflecting reductions in funding and phasing out of the Digital Productivity, ICT Centre of Excellence and Regional Telecommunications Review Response \u2013 Satellite Phone Subsidy Scheme programs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Despite referring explicitly to the \u201cphasing out\u201d of the ICT program in its budget papers, the department has rebuffed <i>StartupSmart<\/i>\u2019s story that the scheme will actually end.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for Stephen Conroy, the Communications Minister, says: \u201cThis article is incorrect.&nbsp;NICTA is funded in the budget for the 13\/14 and 14\/15 financial years, with future funding to be considered in the context of next year\u2019s budget.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe government has a long-standing history of support for NICTA and the groundbreaking research and innovation it undertakes.&nbsp;\u201c<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In 2010, the government pledged additional $185.5 million in funding for NICTA, to allow it to operate until 2015.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Although no further funding has been announced to extend the lifespan of the scheme, with the budget papers pointing to its demise, NICTA said it wasn\u2019t going to be scrapped.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for the innovation hub says: \u201cNo new funding was expected to be announced in last night&#8217;s statement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNICTA still has over two more years of funding under the existing four year program and continues to receive strong support across government and Parliament. We are in ongoing discussions about funding beyond the current term.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>NICTA, which was established in 2002, has more than 600 researchers that work on advancing Australia\u2019s digital economy and helping build tech start-ups.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As well as federal funding, the scheme is backed by most state governments, although the Queensland government ditched its funding last year. Several universities, such as the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne, also back NICTA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The federal government has denied that National ICT Australia, the nation\u2019s flagship IT research and innovation program, is to be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33823"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}