Thanks for posting that Devolair
.... the article in full... for many who dont have time to flick between screens ... Prima is in paragraph 8 ....
" Time to go from sticking heads in the ground to trying new ideas
Eric Knight
September 27, 2011
OPINION
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"In the future, our knowledge-based mining technology sector will be worth billions of dollars" ... Peter Beattie. Photo: Glenn Hunt
Donald Horne famously opened the final chapter of his 1964 best seller with these words: ''Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck''. His description of Australia as lucky was intended ironically. Australia's wealth did not come by dint of hard work or invention. It came from what lay underground. Australia was a mining and minerals economy and not much more. Australia, Horne observed, ''showed less enterprise than almost any other prosperous industrial society''.
The source of Australia's wealth is a long-running saga in our economic history. Thomas Barlow, author of The Australian Miracle, argued the opposite. Not only has Australia created new ideas, but it has also been exceptionally skilled at adapting international ideas. Even mining is not without high-tech invention. Much of the extraction process is driven by advanced robotics. ''In the future,'' former Queensland premier Peter Beattie wrote last week, ''our knowledge-based mining technology sector will be worth billions of dollars and one of our most important exports.''
Which is the more dangerous idea? That Australia underrates its entrepreneurial abilities, inclining its youngest generations to seek their fortune offshore? Or that Australia is complacent - willing to take its luck and not invest the proceeds wisely. Whichever, future policy settings must be the same. Australia must invest in local talent and build a workforce flexible and entrepreneurial enough to seize opportunities as they arise.
"Investing in local talent'' is an ambiguous call to action. For some, it is code for the government picking winners. Gene Tunny, the former Commonwealth Treasury public servant, argued that this malaise infected the Rudd government during its management of the global financial crisis.
In November 2008, for example, $6.2 billion of financial assistance was pledged to the automotive industry, of which $3.2 billion was new funding, and up to $1.3 billion was promised to the Green Car Innovation Fund. The fund was framed as an initiative to help Australian car manufacturers enter the next century of environmentally efficient vehicles. Tunny felt it was the wrong strategy. ''Cutting the tariff rate, ending financial support, and removing the $12,000 used-car tariff would be most desirable.''
Yet both sides of politics accept the manufacturing industry may deserve special attention. Tony Abbott implied so much in telling the Committee for Economic Development of Australia last month: ''If a respectable case can be made for maintaining a heavy manufacturing base on the grounds of national security, [or] the inherent value of a diversified economy ? there needs to be a forum where it can be addressed.''
Heavy manufacturing may not prove to be our country's future. But there are Australian entrepreneurs who are proving Australia can be a world leader in advanced, high-tech manufacturing. We have the intellectual talent and the assurance of quality to beat international competition.
At Prima BioMed, a company manufacturing ovarian cancer vaccines at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, blood samples arrive from around the world, are processed by highly trained scientists, and are exported to a worldwide market at a premium. Dozens of Australian start-ups - including Mesoblast and Acrux - are doing similar things, forming part of Australia's dynamic biotech cluster and showing leadership in advanced manufacturing.
As Australia turns its mind to life after the mining boom, its greatest opportunities might surprise. We will continue to have a vibrant, productive services economy - and that's a good thing. But we must also make things, rather than just polish people's shoes. Andrew Liveris, Dow Chemical Company's Australian-born chief executive and author of Make it in America, argues that high-tech manufacturing has a multiplier effect in developed economies. Intellectual property, for example, is often generated in proximity to production: ''Research and development works best when it can be linked to production.''
Australian jobs at the Bonds singlet factory and the Dunlop Volley shoes factory are forever lost to China. But the fancy stuff - pharmaceuticals, robotics, chemicals and so on - has a much better chance. It's a dangerous idea that can be taken too far, but we must defend our competitive edge to make the next big thing. "
Eric Knight, a Rhodes scholar whose Oxford doctorate was on the economics of advanced manufacturing, is an ANU researcher who will moderate a Festival of Dangerous Ideas panel at the Opera House on Saturday.
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