E&OE.........................................................................................
Thank you very much Campbell to you and my Ministerial colleagues, Nick
Minchin in particular, the co-organisers and co-hosts of this very remarkable
gathering of very dedicated, diverse and distinguished Australians. To
the Chief Scientist of Israel, Dr Orna Berry, to the Chief Scientist of
Australia, Dr Rob Batterham, to my other ministerial colleagues and ladies
and gentlemen.
As I am sure you know my professional odyssey before I became a politician,
I am normally described as being a suburban solicitor although the reality
is that I practiced in the central business district of Sydney all of
my professional career. And therefore I guess the peripheral cynic would
say that my understanding of and association with science and innovation
was not very great when I entered Federal Parliament. And I have to say
to you that in the almost four years now that I have been Prime Minister,
one of the most rewarding personal experiences that I have had is to be
exposed as Chairman of the Prime Minister's Science Council, as I
still generically call it, during that period of time. And that exposure
has been something of a personal journey and experience for me I frankly
admit to coming to that position, committed to the ideals of a partnership
between Government, the business community, the scientists, the innovators,
the inventors and the researchers of Australia, and having a very clear
view that that was tremendously important to the development, particularly
because of the Australian culture of a can-do economy, and a can-do society.
But that experience over the last four years has left a very significant
impression on me.
I don't mind acknowledging that the genesis of my own very strong
personal support for quite a number of the Government's significant
decisions over that period of time which has resonated so importantly
in the areas for which you have responsibility. The genesis of that has
come out of the working of that council. I think particularly of the focus
that it brought to me in relation to the importance of investment in health
and medical research in our country, which of course has lead to the Government's
doubling of our commitment in that area over the next four years. So tremendously
important to not only the domestic but also the international reputation
and research capacity in those areas of Australia her scientists and her
doctors. And, of course, the focus that was brought to bear in the council
on the importance of the interaction of the investment incentives that
operate within our taxation system towards the contribution that people
make to encouraging investment in innovation, in new ventures and the
desirability of having a taxation regime that encourages the risk-taking
and the patience that is required to bring those things about. And that
of course played a very significant role, not only in shaping my own attitude,
but the attitude of many of my colleagues towards some of the decisions
that found their way in to the Government's business taxation reforms
that have now been agreed to and will be presented to the Parliament for
ratification within the next few weeks or months.
I mentioned those things in particular ladies and gentlemen to underline
a very strong personal commitment on my part to what this gathering is
about - an acknowledgment of the enormous importance to Australia's
future of her scientists, her engineers, medical researchers and all of
those that are broadly involved in the innovation process. As is often
the case in a political life, and particularly in the life of a Prime
Minister, there are conversations you have with people which leave you
with a very lasting impression, and cast a very long shadow, so to speak,
of your own understanding of how the world operates and the forces that
are likely to bear on that operation in the years ahead.
And one such of those conversations I had in July of 1997 with the then
and now recently reappointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve system of
the United States, Dr Alan Greenspan. And I asked him a fairly simplistic,
I suppose he'd been asked it a hundred times before, inquiring question
and I said can you please explain to me how it is that the United States
economy is performing with such spectacular strength at the present time.
And he said that he'd reached the age of 71 and he thought he understood
everything about economics and a lot about human nature, and he said frankly
he didn't really know. But he then went on to say if you really pressed
me to venture an opinion, he said I think it's got to do with the
enormous investment that our country has made in technology and the enormous
commitment of the business community and of the whole culture of the United
States in technology.
Now that piece of advice stayed with me and I was reminded of it a few
weeks ago when I read a speech he'd delivered in the United States
and he ventured the perhaps cheeky for an American, but nonetheless given
his position and entirely appropriate observation that one of the reasons
why he thought the economic growth of Europe and Japan had lagged somewhat
behind that of the United States was the fact that the investment of those
countries in technology and the commitment to innovation had not been
as great as had been in the United States.
And I accept as Prime Minister of Australia that there is a lesson in
that for us. And if we are to achieve with the assets that we have, and
we've got a lot of assets that other countries don't have. If
we are to achieve the ideal of the can-do country in the twenty-first
century, we do have to understand the message that was implicit in the
Chairman's observation to me a couple of years ago.
And there are gathered in this room, people who will play a role in achieving
the ideal of a can-do country. It is a partnership. And I do acknowledge
the importance of the Summit having been organised as a joint effort of
the Business Council of Australia and of the Government. The Government
does have a role, there is a role for public investment in research and
development, and I hope that we have demonstrated that and demonstrated
it in a very significant way.
I understand the debate about the level of taxation incentives, and of
course that will be one of the things that will come out of this Summit
as a recommendation. I understand that. I also understand the importance
of innovation and technology in responding to one of the major contemporary
social and political challenges of Australia, today and that is the impact
of economic change on the regions and the rural areas of Australia.
It probably hasn't escaped your attention that over the past few
days, I spent a week travelling around rural Australia. And I visited
a combination of what you would loosely call towns representative of what
we call the bush and areas that are more akin to the prosperous regional,
particularly coastal towns and cities of Australia.
And there were many things that I took away from that week. I was of
course left with a very deep impression of the debilitating impact of
longterm declines in commodity prices and the adversity compounding that
of weather in many parts of Australia. And I was also left of course with
some tremendous good news stories of the tremendous success of the cotton
industry in western New South Wales - encouraged by very sophisticated
irrigation technology and the extraordinarily sophisticated technology
and innovation surrounding the tuna industry in Port Lincoln. A world
class and world competitive industry.
And the relevance of that experience to me and for me when I think about
this Innovation Summit was that it was a very strong reminder of how part
of the answer to the challenge of the bush and the challenge of regional
Australia is to make absolutely certain that we marshal technological
skill, we marshal innovation to the advantage of our fellow Australians
who live outside the major capital cities. And one of their great entreaties
to me, and I am sure to all who care to listen is that they share to the
full in the development of the information technology era, which is having
such a profound impact on all of our lives.
One of the great advantages of a gathering such as this, because it brings
together not only ministers and leaders of the business community, but
also people of eminence in the academic community, practitioners in science
and medicine and engineering and also people who are playing a trailblazing
role so far as information technology is concerned in this country is
that it does drive home the importance of the linkages between the Government
and all those other sections of the community.
I've often spoken in another context of how as I look back of the
last twenty or thirty years of politics, not only here in Australia, but
also around the rest of the democratic world, that we've really gone
through in a sense three phases in the interaction of government and the
private sector and the rest of the community. I think we did go through
a phase in the 1960's when we imagined that the solution to most
problems in this country lay in ever-increasing investment of resources
by government, particularly at a federal level, as being the answer to
all of our problems. And then as time went by there was something of a
reaction against that. And it was thought that the ideal situation was
for government to retreat to a fairly minimalist role in our society.
But I think as we've turned the page into the new century we've
shunned both of those extremes and we now see many problems as problems
that can be very effectively solved by an effective partnership or coalition,
a word I've used in another context, between the government and different
elements of our community. And I see this Summit today and this gathering
here tonight as being very much an expression of that.
I bring a very simple commitment to you, that the Government is totally
involved in harnessing the capacity of our scientists, our inventors,
our researchers, and our innovators to the economic and social future
of our nation. That's the broad commitment and that's the sense
of personal enthusiasm that I bring to it. You are entitled of course
to reserve judgement until you see the quality and nature of further Government
decisions. I hope that some of the decisions that we've taken to
date and I touched upon a few of them earlier in my remarks, are an earnest,
or a downpayment of what might be achieved in the future.
There are many challenges that will require the harnessing of your understanding
and your commitment. I thought again back to my experience of travelling
around the regions of Australia last week and one of course can't
escape for very long the challenge of water resources and the interaction
of the political and scientific and environmental issues that bear upon
that and the enormous threat posed by salinity to the economic base and
social future of many communities in Australia. And that is a challenge
for the Government, it will require the commitment it has already enjoyed
the commitment of large financial resources from the Government. And it
will require the cooperative effort of the Commonwealth Government as
well as the governments of the various Australian states.
So, tonight is an important opportunity for me to simply state a personal
and Government commitment to the cause that this Summit seeks to serve.
And it is an opportunity to thank all of you who made a contribution and
most particularly to thank my ministerial colleague, Nick Minchin, for
the tremendous contribution that he's made.
On one other personal note, could I conclude, and that is that I'm
sure many of you will be touched with a sense of sadness that we don't
have with us tonight Dr Malcolm McIntosh. Malcolm McIntosh who led the
CSIRO with such tremendous distinction was a member of the Science Council,
was a major contributor to government, not only here, but also in the
United Kingdom. I've had the experience of sitting around a Cabinet
table and listening both to ministerial colleagues and other advisers
and people from the business community and from academia and elsewhere
over the last four years. And rarely have I heard anybody who could present
an argument with such force and clarity, yet balanced than I did from
Malcolm McIntosh. And I would not want this occasion to go by without
recording my personal sadness at his death, acknowledging the contribution
that he made to the Australian people and the Australian Government. And
most particularly the contribution he made to CSIRO and an understanding
of so many of the things that are so enormously important to all of us.
Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your contribution of time and talent
and energy to innovation, to the sort of things that are very significantly
going to shape our society for years into the future. We will study very
carefully your recommendations. You will remember my statement of commitment
and support and quite properly you will make your judgements as the months
and the years unfold. I think this has been a great exercise and I thank
all of you for being an important part of it.
[ends]