But the Abbott government terminated its federal funding of $42 million a year, effective from July 1, 2016, and when Dr Merkel toured the facility to inspect a collaborative project being undertaken with Fraunhofer, NICTA was struggling to survive. Mr Turnbull, as communications minister, accompanied Dr Merkel on the tour, which was seized on by critics of the cuts to embarrass the government.

Bilateral visits

Mr Turnbull, who heads overseas on Thursday morning for a series of bilateral visits and summits, including the G20 in Turkey, will arrive in Berlin late on Friday night Australian time.

Mr Turnbull and Dr Merkel will release the recommendations of the Australia-Germany Advisory Group, established a year ago by Mr Abbott and Dr Merkel.

Among its recommendations to boost trade, investment and cultural ties, will be a recommendation to increase the level of collaboration and co-operation between Fraunhofer and NICTA, including embracing Fraunhofer's methodologies for commercialising research.

NICTA, or Data61, merged with the CSIRO earlier this year in order to cut costs and survive. It will stay merged with the CSIRO, meaning it does not need the full $42 million in funding a year restored because about half of that was for administration, a role which has been taken over by the CSIRO.

Sources told The Australian Financial Review that the agency will receive about $20 million a year in ongoing funding, in the belief this will fully reverse the impact on research and development the Abbott cuts would have created, and allow it to continue to operate within the CSIRO as a separate entity.

While the amount of money is relatively small, one senior source said the message the government intended to send would be "enormous" in terms of the premium it placed in innovation and science, and to differentiate itself from Mr Abbott.


​Earlier this year, CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall, whose own agency was hit by $115 million in budget cuts, said the CSIRO would try to save as many of the 617 NICTA jobs as possible before the money ran out in 2016. It was anticipated up to 200 jobs, mainly in backroom support, could go.

The on-again-off-again treatment of NICTA funding was precisely the sort of criticism aired in private last week to members by Business Council of Australia president Catherine Livingstone.

​Ms Livingstone, who has led public debate on the importance of innovation and its links with business, decried the "policy ad-hocery, poor policy design, lack of review and pointless program rebadging".

She told BCA members the current political climate provided "an extraordinary confluence of circumstance", to the extent that "the vision and sentiment are positive", the "innovation imperative is accepted" and the federal government and largest state government, NSW, were aligned.

"We have leaders in both jurisdictions who are good communicators with the capacity to engage the community," she said.

Jakarta meeting

Mr Turnbull's first stop will be Jakarta on Thursday for a bilateral meeting with Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Mr Widodo was a guest of Mr Abbott at last year's G20 in Brisbane. However, the relationship has been very poor since, due mainly to Indonesia's anger about boats being turned back and Australia's anger about Mr Widodo ordering the execution of convicted Australian drug smugglers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.

Mr Turnbull's visit is designed to break the ice ahead of a visit next week by Trade Minister Andrew Robb and a large business delegation.


From Jakarta, he will head to Germany and from there to Turkey. Early next week, Mr Turnbull will fly from Turkey to Manila for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit and then to Malaysia for the East Asia Summit.

He returns on Monday, November 23 but will leave three days later for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta and the Paris climate change leaders' summit.

Consistent with his pledge, Treasurer Scott Morrison is eschewing international travel for now, given the sheer workload of preparing tax reform and the mid-year budget update. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann will accompany Mr Turnbull to Berlin and the G20.

Senator Cormann has led Australia's work on developing the relationship with Germany. In a speech in Berlin in July promoting the work of the advisory group, he highlighted the room to expand collaborative ties.

"For Australia, Germany provides a key entry point for technology collaboration, on top of its impressive track record in commercialising innovation," he said.

He listed numerous examples of our science and technology collaboration leading to direct commercial benefit for both countries, including BASF, which in July 2012 opened its global mining research and development centre at the Australian Minerals Research Centre in Perth.