Know who owns ideas. Some research students will find that their ideas are subject to policy on ownership. The Australian Government defines Intellectual Property (IP) as,

“… the property of your mind or intellect. In business terms, this also means your proprietary knowledge.”

The jurisprudence of Intellectual Property is a niche research field and the University specialist centre is the IP Research Institute of Australia (IPRIA), funded by IP Australia. IP will matter more in some research compared to others. Find out what is conventionally practiced in your faculty and how its researchers define scholarly works.

Intellectual Property is distinct from scholarly work. A general principle is,

“the University asserts ownership of IP, other than scholarly works, created by its staff.”

Scholarly works is defined by the University as,

“ … any article, book, musical composition, creative writing or like publication or any digital or electronic version of these works that contains material written by any member of academic staff, an honorary appointee, a visitor or a student based on that person’s scholarship, learning or research …”

Unless produced as University teaching material or as part of a research project with specific stakeholders, student scholarship is by definition “scholarly works”.  While the outcome of wider projects belong to the university, your "original contribution" to knowledge is your scholarly works, insofar as you can isolate your specific contribution in the research thesis.  Know how your Masters or Doctoral thesis corresponds accordingly to idea ownership.  Your scholarship is yours to own -- not that of your supervisor or panel or other faculty staff.

One-liner
Scholarly works belong the scholar.

References
Brief Overview of the University's IP Policy,
http://www.research.unimelb.edu.au/ridg/ip/overview.html

The University’s Intellectual Property Research Institute,
http://www.ipria.org/

IP Australia is the Australian Government agency responsible for administering patents, trade marks, designs and plant breeder’s rights.
http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/