INNOVATION SLIPPING UNDER LABOR
08-September-2011
Australia’s sliding innovation rankings in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index (WEF GCI) present another worrying omen about where Senator Kim Carr, the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, is taking this country.
Senator Carr finally acknowledged that Australia’s manufacturing is a “troubled sector”, a big admission from someone who has made a livelihood out of positively spinning the sector’s largest decline since the Great Depression. In the same recent opinion piece Senator Carr went on to say:
“Across the political spectrum, there is a growing consensus that investment in innovation is the only way to build industries that compete in an advanced economy.”
In reality, it’s impossible to see how the Government’s rhetoric on innovation is being matched by its actions.
Firstly, the R&D Tax Concessions were replaced with a vastly inferior system. Industry experts have universally canned this change of direction by the Gillard Government. David Gelb, Taxation Partner of KPMG said on 1 February 2010:
“The R&D Tax Concession was broad based and available to every company. With this nonsensical and complex piece of legislation, they are killing it.”
Then there is the decimation of support for commercialisation. Commercial Ready was abolished in 2008 and after an 18 month void replaced by the vastly inferior Commercialisation Australia.
And recently, Kim Carr’s Department has rejected at least 16 out of 26 applications for funding under the Co-Operative Research Centres program as part of $33m in cuts in that crucial area of innovation investment.
With all of these cuts it’s hardly a surprise that Australia has slipped 4 places to 20th in the WEF GCI rankings, due in part to rapidly declining performance in the Index’s key pillar of innovation.