PRIME MINISTER:
Well, thank you very much John. Margaret Gardner, thank you very much for that fine address. Chancellor Simon McKeon, wonderful to be here with Julia Banks the Member for Chisholm and her brother Anthony Lolatgis, both graduates of Monash and both great examples of the brilliant minds that are produced from this great university, which I’m told a Prime Minister, has not visited since 1989. Well that seems a very long time to go between Prime Ministerial visits. I’ll have to make sure I come back regularly. With the Vice Chancellor and the Chancellor here I’m sure they’ll ensure that and with Julia’s advocacy in particular I’m sure they will.
Now you know, you talked about, John talked very kindly as did Margaret, about the importance of innovation and science in my vision for a successful, prosperous and secure 21st century Australia. Let me say to you that this is not an option, innovation is not something you can discard, it’s not something that can be fashionable one year and unfashionable the next. We are living in an age where the pace and scale of change is completely without precedent. There has been no precedent in human history for the intensity and the speed of the change, and the scale of it, the size of it, in human history.
So, all that can produce a great deal of anxiety, it does produce a great deal of disruption but the critical insight is to understand that if you want to be successful, if you want to remain from the point of view of the nation, as a prosperous first world economy that can afford a generous social welfare safety net - a fair society and we do, then we must be keenly innovative.
We have to remember that unless we stay at the forefront of technology, unless our researchers are doing the best work, unless our businesses and firms and entrepreneurs and investors are with them in that great work, then we will inevitably fall off the back of the pack. That is the fact.
So, we can have rhetorical debates about it but the truth is, innovation is the key to success in the 21st century. And the foundation of course? There is great education and you know, we are here at a university – often people talk about the dream inspires, ivory towers, the groves of academia – talk about universities as though they are somewhere remote from the real world. Margaret absolutely nails it as does John, this Biomedical Discovery Institute, this collaboration – you may have noticed the Vice Chancellor referred to collaboration again and again in her remarks. It is the key. Why is that? We are humans, fundamentally very social animals. We are very social animals, we are most productive, most creative, most entertained, most interested, most motivated when we are working with each other. So the truth is that while we thought, many of us thought when the internet came along - in its full blown sense if you like, a bit over 20 years ago – we all imagined in this completely cyber-sphere world, we imagined that this would annihilate geography, and that everyone could spread out and work remotely over the internet. And of course they do, they do that as well, but nonetheless, the importance of clustering the importance of bringing businesses and researchers together, the importance as John said of bringing researchers from different areas, from different fields, from different disciplines together, is more important than ever because it is that engagement that gives you to the speed of innovation and development that you need.
And that’s why you see universities far from being remote places of speculative learning and introspection, have in fact become centres of industry. Centres of investment, centres of entrepreneurship - why? Because at their heart is that scientific search, that pushing of the envelope, that readiness to undertake innovation. That is why universities, and I say this as the son of a university professor so I hope my mother’s ghost doesn’t interrupt the proceedings, but that is why it’s important always – to discourage deference – to ensure that courtesy is important, but it is critically important to ensure that students, researchers - even if they are young and utterly without publications, they should be encouraged to push the envelope and challenge the orthodox. Because unless they do – we won’t make the progress that we need.
I want to say to you- you can see that I’m enthusiastic, so I am delighted to be here. I was fascinated with the brief description of the research that we had on the way through. I’m very interested in learning more about signal terminating enzymes, Christina thank you, that was good.
You know it was a rather humbling tour actually because many years ago, Luce as many of you - many old friends here in the room know Lucy and me well- but Luce and I have always been strong supporters of medical research for many many years. And had a very keen interest in it and of course we live in Sydney, naturally so the biggest medical research precinct near us is the St Vincent’s campus in Sydney.
Many years ago Ron Penny, who I’m sure many of you know – Professor Penny, persuaded me to be the chairman of his centre for immunology. And I did that out of enthusiasm for Ron’s work, belief in his great – his big heart, big brain and the work that his researchers were doing. But I’ve always felt that I didn’t spend enough time to learn more about the science of immunology. And I have to say Christina your exposition of the few questions I asked you was so clear and so concise, if I could distil that erudition and apply it to my own advocacy, I would detain my audiences for much less time than I do, so thank you.
We have a massive commitment to medical research as you know. You understand that it is – you acknowledged the important work of governments. Critically our Medical Research Future Fund already with $4.6 billion aimed, seeking to, aiming to reach $20 billion a year. The Biomedical Translation Fund which I was discussing with the Minister, Greg Hunt, on the way here, that will have $250 million of government money matched by $250 million of private money and of course it is designed to do exactly what the Vice- Chancellor was talking about which is taking the great work of the scientists and connecting that with the commercial partners that will then be able to provide the further capital, the further resources and then take it out to the world.
The truth is that we have a great track record and again Margaret described some of the achievements in medical research in Australia. Where we are not as good, and it’s not just limited to the life sciences, but where we’re not as good as we should be is in commercialising that research.
That is a weakness if you like that we are seeking to address in the National Innovation and Science Agenda. I think everybody is aware of the problem and we need to do a better job. We need to be more like countries and societies that are very similar to us in their academic culture; the United States, the United Kingdom being two very obvious examples who do a better job at the commercialisation piece.
But what you are doing here is a great role model for others. It’s a great example of the way in which the groves of academe can actually be hives of industry and I want to applaud you for it and I am delighted to be here at the establishment of this very exciting institute. So congratulations, thank you and I’ll certainly be back well-before the, what would it be, the 27th anniversary, seems far too long. Thank you very much indeed.
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