Numbers Won't Add Up On Jobs Package The Gillard government's innovation and jobs package was launched this week despite warnings from its industry department and the tax office that the $1 billion saving at the heart of the policy might never eventuate. In six months, it has raised only $126 million. At the AWU conference in Queensland on Wednesday, Mr Combet refused to say why the government did not go with the other suggested option: capping research and development payments to $100 million for companies with a turnover of more than $15 billion. Forgive me. That's a cabinet in confidence document that appears to have been leaked," Mr Combet told reporters. I'm simply not going to go into the pros and cons of different policy options that we looked at months ago and rationalise them. At the end of the day the decision that we took affects less than 20 of the largest companies in the country . . . We're redirecting savings from that measure to assisting thousands and thousands of other companies through the initiatives we announced on Sunday. Asked how the government would tackle the potential problems with companies restructuring to avoid losing their accelerated research and development tax breaks, he said: "That's for us. That's a cabinet-in-confidence [matter]. Interviewed earlier on Wednesday on ABC radio, Mr Combet said that he was "confident that we can safely implement the policy." The savings relate to the R and D tax incentive. This is cabinet-in-confidence material, which is typically provided to ministers when they're considering options about these things, and that's what this paper is canvassing: the options. Mr Combet said his department did not advise against the policy announced by Ms Gillard on Sunday. "My office as you would expect . . . worked very closely with my department in the development of all aspects of the policy," he said. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said on Fairfax Radio on Wednesday morning that Labor's industry plan was "fundamentally misconceived" and marked a shift "away from industry-led research and towards bureaucracy-led research." He said the Coalition would look more closely at the plan before deciding whether to scrap it. Coalition industry spokeswoman Sophie Mirabella called for the government to release any modelling behind its $1 billion revenue estimate. She said since the government did not yet know the impact of separate recent changes that aimed to restrict tax concessions to the same big companies, and the $1 billion estimate seemed "rushed and speculative." with Dan Harrison