Ingenuity with purpose: future drive for innovation in Australia

I begin by acknowledging the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, the traditional custodians of the Canberra region and pay respect to the elders, past and present.

I represent an electorate in Western Sydney that sits within the lands of the Dharug and I express gratitude for their custodianship of those lands.

And while on this point, I think it important to recognise that the forerunners of modern innovation in Australia are our First Nations’ people.

Who learned how to survive on one of the toughest continents, through observation of the fauna and flora, watching and living with the weather patterns of this land, testing, discovering, building and abiding by communal knowledge bases transmitted across generations.

If we share a firm view about celebrating and respecting Australian ingenuity, then we can start by respecting theirs.

It means a lot to be part of this event, because it comes at the start of a new chapter of your existence.

With a new name and renewed sense of purpose.

Championing a now well established feature of the nation’s innovation architecture — our Cooperative Research Centres.

I took the chance to absorb some of the recollections and thoughts of someone held in high regard by your association: Professor Ralph Slatyer, who you commemorate via your annual address. The nation’s first Chief Scientist and the guiding hand behind the establishment of these CRCs three decades ago.

Through his past words you can’t fail to be struck by his commitment to cooperative research, the satisfaction generated by working with others, eschewing the “monkish” tendency to work in isolation, deprived of the chance to share with others the thrill of breakthroughs.

That personal philosophy was fertile ground to conceive the CRC concept: “we wanted close links to be built … whether they were government agencies, businesses or whatever, although I was a little apprehensive as to how successful we would be in building links with some of the businesses in Australian industry sectors that are not strong performers of R&D.”

Soon after they sprang to life, Professor Slatyer observed that the CRCs were the most: “significant development we have had in Australia since 1965 when the Australian Research Grants Committee was first established.”

That comment was made nearly thirty years ago about an event that happened thirty years prior. I want to come back to this point.

It was around November 1989 that he pitched the CRC concept to then Prime Minister Bob Hawke: “…and to my absolute delight he smiled on it,” he recalled.

He no doubt assumed — after that reaction — that setting up the CRC was a done deal. However, in an astonishingly rare moment politics managed to get in the way of science. Recounted Professor Slatyer: “…the opposition parties did something or other which was politically rather inept and the prime minister decided the time was propitious to call an election, so the whole thing got into the election context.”

I couldn’t possibly comment.

Prime Minister Hawke’s commitment to the CRC concept was not fleeting, it featured in one of the most critical speeches he could give: the launch of his 1990 campaign.

Where he spoke proudly of the plan to deliver 50 CRCs, but couched in a sense of national mission and purpose: “In this national task of mobilising our human resources, our scientists and researchers stand at the forefront. Australia must reduce its reliance on imported technology and borrowed research. We must become a leader in the production and export of ideas.”

For him, he saw the prospect of not just retaining our human capital but supplementing it with more bright minds, as he put it: “…instead of young Australian scientists having to go to Europe, America and Japan to find the leading edge of scientific research, we’ll have their scientists coming to us.”

History records Bob Hawke going on to win that election, establish the CRC’s and — through bipartisan commitment — they evolved into, as Jane O’Dwyer now says: “the bedrock of our national innovation system”.

I note the reference Minister Price made yesterday that across successive Labor and Liberal governments, $5.3bn has been invested in CRCs since 1990. The endurance of the CRCs is to be celebrated but never taken for granted, especially when governments square up to attack their funding.

Rightly, much has been said about the economic contribution of CRCs. However I bridle at the notion that governments pursue innovation for its own sake or merely to chase a dollar.

When it comes to government support of innovation activity, we should weld economic ambition with social purpose, to see a dividend that improves the quality of life for people in this country — and beyond.

In measurable ways, the CRCs have delivered this, take for example efforts in the realm of health;

• From the often remarked upon Cochlear ear implant;
• Treatments used to prevent dental decay and sidestep serious health issues in later lift;
• The development of Australia’s first National Guideline for the Assessment and Diagnosis of Autism; and,
• Even to the extended wear soft contact lenses I’m relying upon right now and which I’d like to thank you for.

The reason I wanted to reflect on that history is to spotlight:

• The constant need to improve R&D performance in Australia — public and private effort joined in that effort;
• The acknowledgement of national gain that comes from that; and,
• The eye to retaining and attracting talent to achieve this.

Thirty years ago we had a Prime Minister challenge us as a nation to do better, look outward, to pursue initiative and export — instead of import — ideas.

He sets up CRCs in a move described at the time as the most important in nearly thirty years.

From that observation made thirty years ago fast forward to today, with a Prime Minister in 2020 saying: “We’ve just got to be the best at adopting. Taking it on board. Making it work for us. And we’re really good at that.”

Is that where we have landed? The best ambition we have as a nation is to become the best customer on an app store?

Against that lacklustre ambition, look where we are.

The Australian Sovereign Capability Association — via work commissioned with Flinders University — noted that we remain an importer of technology and equipment across critical sectors.

On manufacturing self sufficiency we rank dead last in the OECD.

We still fail to value-add in our key sectors.

We’ve dropped five places to number 25 on the Global Innovation Index.

We slipped to 20 on the World Digital Competitiveness Ranking (WDRC).

Australia’s investment in research and development is well below where it needs to be, R&D spend as a percentage of total GDP fell from 2.11 per cent in 2012 to 1.79 per cent in 2020.

As the Australian Information Industry Association observed, with results like that and without a full-scale national strategy, it will be hard to see us become a leading digital economy by 2030.

Even today, more evidence of flagging research commitment by the Morrison government.

The Parliament is set to debate the government’s changes to the Medical Research Future Fund, changes that are a major breach of its own promises, shortchanging medical research effort in this nation.

Despite pledging years ago — with much fanfare — that Australian medical research would benefit from $1bn worth of support, the government has flagged it will cut that.

Instead of using the proceeds of the MRFF to distribute $1bn in support, the government has shaved $350m from that, the words of former Finance Minister Mathias Corman a now faded memory: “The (MRFF) fund will eventually provide around $1 billion per annum in additional funding for medical research and medical innovation…. This means a doubling of the current level of public investment at a federal level into medical research, which of course is a great opportunity.”

Worse still, when the money from that fund was there to distribute, the government couldn’t help itself — handing it out in ways that would raise questions.

And raise questions they did — in the minds of the Australian National Audit Office. It found Health Minister Hunt ignored the independent, expert advice on how this should be disbursed. Disturbingly the ANAO observed of the government’s plans for the MRFF: “There is no direct relationship between the initiatives in the 10-year Plan and the MRFF Strategy and MRFF Priorities and it is not clear how the 10-year Plan was designed.”

It’s not only inconceivable that after making so much noise about its funding promises that it’s paring the fund back — but bizarrely, obtusely, the Morrison government is doing so in the aftermath of a pandemic that demands greater — not less — focus on, as the government itself describes, “critical medical research”.

This speaks to a number of things about the Coalition. The most obvious being its record when it comes to funding research (with a preference to cutting as opposed to supporting).

But it also reflects genuine lack of belief in Australian know-how, combined with an absence of any motive or purpose for innovation activity in this country.

It seems the Coalition is only interested in innovation if it is a lure for media coverage. Once the TV cameras are switched off, so goes their interest.

As a nation, over nearly two years, we have confronted challenges unlike anything that current generations have been forced to face before.

A situation that has compelled us to closely examine shortcomings that held us back.

The journey to acquire new insight through research hasn’t ended.

The pressure to apply these insights, your insights, hasn’t ebbed — just grown exponentially.

Where we currently stand, Labor firmly believes the moment presents us with a big opportunity to do things differently.

To do better than before. To reshape, to improve.

Within that reflection lies an approach we would like to apply should we have the honour of forming government after the next election.

Because we believe our nation has the talent and know-how to help fulfill ambition.

It should be remembered — from thought to action — our nation’s innovation system is made up of interlocking parts that should be joined up through a sense of national purpose.

What our innovators need is the faith of a government that is on their side, with the resources and initiative that’s testament to that faith.

This is something only a Labor Government can, and has, delivered.

It was a Labor Government that created the CRCs and the Rural Research and Development Corporations and the innovation precincts that paved the way for what we now know as the Industry Growth Centres.

Labor Government’s back Australian ideas because we know they will deliver, they have to deliver.

From what we have announced so far, you should sense our hunger to revitalise Australian industry, backing local effort, creating opportunity.

Establishing a National Reconstruction Fund to create secure jobs for Australian workers, drive regional economic development, boost our sovereign capability and diversify the nation’s economy.

Modelled off the Clean Energy Financing Corporation, the $15bn NRF will be run by an independent board observing a government driven investment mandate to support critical sectors in our economy:

• boost value add activity in resources and agriculture;
• spur on medical through to defence industry capability; and,
• support effort in areas such as AI and robotics.

We’ve announced a Future Made In Australia Policy encompassing a National Rail Manufacturing Plan, a Defence Industry Development Strategy and an Australian Skills Guarantee.

A Buy Australian plan to utilise the power of government procurement to drive opportunity for local industry and job growth.

We also have a job to do to lift the rate of startup formation in this country, especially for those young firms that are formed as a result of research and development.

It’s why an Albanese Labor Government would back a ‘Startup Year,’ offering 2,000 students the opportunity to be mentored by our most innovative university-backed incubators.

Designed to drive a new generation of innovators and aspiring entrepreneurs, the goal of Startup Year is crisply expressed: new firms, new jobs, new growth.

Under this plan, we would utilize the HELP-loans scheme (used to support the HECS scheme) to create an exceptionally competitive loan for use by university students prepared to stay an additional year and working with a university accelerators to build a more sustainable business, breathing life into ideas that emerged during their learning.

Leading into the election the shape of our policy agenda will become even more detailed.

But for people in this room, just know that the fuel for much of this effort will be Australian know-how.

The canniness and ingenuity embedded in our people, who for generations have had to make do in a continent like ours, finding ways to survive, grow and make the world notice the pluckiness and smarts of a country at regular danger of being ignored due to distance and size.

Lifting our gaze from where we stand to where we want to be, Labor wants government supported innovation activity to:

• help make fellow Australians healthier;
• enhance their sense of social and economic well-being;
• revitalising and modernising our nation and its economy;
• endowing future Australians with an enriched environment, natural and built; and,
• strengthening Australia in the face of new challenges confronting us.

And importantly — through that sense of purpose — calling on even more Australians to contribute, to play their part in building back better.

We can achieve this with a stable national government, united in focus, its own members understanding that they are combining as one to lift and improve the nation from where we currently are:

• Not squandering and shortchanging ambition by challenging science;
• cutting research support;
• giving lukewarm support to industry and manufacturing;
• telling us the best we can do is import someone else’s endeavour; and,
• incapable of even keeping their own industry minister in a job for longer than 330 days.

We can do this together, working together in the way our pioneering first Chief Scientist would expect.

This speech was delivered on 20 October 2021 to the Cooperative Research Australia conference “Collaborate Innovate 2021”