Feb 14, 2022

Share Michelle Gallaher, CEO of medical software company Opyl, got a rude shock when she received an update from Austrade on her application for export assistance under the Morrison government’s Export Market Development Grants scheme . The $450,000, three-year grant that Austrade had been offering to help Australian businesses rebuild their export businesses after the COVID-19 border closures had been suddenly cut to $105,000 at most – a 77 per cent drop on what the government had been promoting – because of unprecedented demand for the grant, Austrade told her. Michelle Gallaher, CEO of Opyl Services, says her company will face considerable pressure now that the export grants scheme has been savaged. Eamon Gallagher That was for a “tier 3” grant, for companies that had an established export business and were looking to expand it and make strategic shifts. Tier 2 grants, for companies looking to expand their export business, were cut by 71 per cent from what Austrade had been promoting, and tier 1 grants, for companies just getting into export, were cut by 62 per cent, Austrade announced. Austrade’s announcement on the smaller grants was rushed out under the cover of Christmas on December 23, with many affected companies not hearing about it until they returned to work in the new year. Ms Gallaher said Opyl’s product, Opin, an AI-based software platform for recruiting patients for clinical trials, was ready to enter new markets where it did not yet have an established brand or commercial relationships. Advertisement “Having prioritised building Opin during the pandemic and pivoting the business to meet the global opportunity in clinical trial services, the news put considerably more pressure on our newly hired sales and partnering team to deliver fast results,” Ms Gallaher said. She said Opin was growing rapidly and was now recruiting patients to trials across the Asia-Pacific region and the Americas, and was about to start recruitment in languages other than English. ‘Out the window’ While its strategy to enter global markets doesn’t change because of the funding shortfall, Ms Gallaher said Austrade’s nasty surprise had put more pressure on jobs growth. “Coming off the back of two challenging years in which the business had to significantly change strategy to meet conditions, significant support via EMDG would have been a major accelerator and provided considerable confidence and comfort around resource allocation and jobs growth,” she said. Gemma Hansen, an expert in the EMDG scheme at the export grants and trade fair services company Export Solutions, said Opyl wasn’t the only company taken aback by Austrade’s unwelcome Christmas announcement. Advertisement The whole industry was shocked, she said. “Austrade had been promoting that businesses could get approved for up to $150,000 a year for the next three years, and businesses had got really excited. They thought the EMDG was going to be how they would grow their business overseas,” Ms Hansen said. “But now those plans have gone out the window. There is a whole pile of businesses that now can’t do half the things they were planning on doing.” The problem, she said, was that Austrade had overhauled the EMDG scheme but had failed to put in place any sort of test to restrict access to the scheme to businesses with a good chance of success. “Austrade went in with good intentions, but it didn’t work out because the policy people rewriting the scheme didn’t fully understand not putting restrictions into the re-orientated program was a problem. “How could they not see that this was going to blow their budget?” Ms Hansen said. Advertisement But an Austrade spokesman said the commission did work closely with stakeholders to design the scheme. “Austrade received more than 5300 applications for the new EMDG program. It was by far the highest number of applicants in the program’s history,” he said. “The government announced an additional $80 million over the next four years to meet this increased demand. “While the grants being offered may not be what was initially promoted, grant amounts under the new program are comparable with the average reimbursement scheme grant of $40,000 over the past 10 years.” John Davidson is an award-winning columnist, reviewer, and senior writer based in Sydney and in the Digital Life Laboratories, from where he writes about personal technology. Connect with John on Twitter . Email John at jdavidson@afr.com Save