blog I don’t want to comment too strongly on the substance of the speech at this point, but I wanted to make readers aware that Malcolm Turnbull’s Parliamentary Secretary Paul Fletcher has delivered a major speech on the Coalition’s vision for the Digital Economy. You can find the full text online. Some of the more pointed comments from the speech:
“In my view one sensible principle which should guide our decision making as a nation is to play to our strengths.
I was struck by a point made by the OECD in its 2011 Science, Technology and Innovation Scorecard: the degree of specialisation of every G7 economy except Canada has steadily increased in recent years. In a world of ever-increasing trade, this makes sense and is consistent with the principle of comparative advantage.
Lest I be misunderstood, I am not arguing for a second that we should ignore the digital disruption of our economy and retreat to industries where we have traditional strengths.
Rather, I am arguing that digital disruption is making the world an even more intensively competitive place. On the plus side, that means that Australia certainly has the capacity to be world competitive in developing and exporting software – and unlike many other products, because it is weightless and incurs no transport costs, we do not face a cost disadvantage from being a long way from major markets.
But on the minus side, businesses located in lots of other countries can also be world competitive. So it becomes even more important to work out what your strengths are – and where you are going to be good enough to build not just a strong market share in Australia but a strong market share globally.
One implication of that principle, I believe, is that if Australia has a world class, large scale resources industry, or agriculture industry, then the development of IT applications and services to make that industry more productive and efficient might be a niche where Australian companies have an advantage.”
I personally view this speech as being likely to have been delivered at least partially in reaction to a speech on a similar topic made several weeks ago by Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen. You can check out that speech here.
Image credit: Office of Malcolm Turnbull
Paul Fletcher confuses me as much as Malcolm Turnbull does. These men are clearly not idiots, so why are they building such an idiotic national telecoms network?
It’s not an idiotic national telecoms network, it’s an ideological national telecoms network.
…that’s also idiotic.
Most of the IT and industry innovation strategies of the last 20 yrs have contained this message.
Remember back in the day companies like Mincom etc were held up as shining examples.
Nothing new in this at all.
What is increasingly clear is that there is a growing disenchantment because government policy makers and politicians are putting forward ideas and solutions that many in industry have learnt are inadequate. Not good enough. Need to do better.
Isn’t he in effect telling the tech industry to fix their fortunes to industries that are in fact constrained by weight and transport costs?
Not only that, but also vulnerable to increasing climate change/AGW
That, and peak oil.
It’s not so much stupid as absurd, or possibly insane.
This just seeks to reinforce what I’ve said before about the Liberals’ vision for Australia: Mining and farming, Australia’s past and its future.
I feel kind of sick.
Actually, the argument and reasoning is exactly the same one that shut down the technology research in the 60’s and early 70’s.
Interesting to note that Abbots goal for Australia is to be an energy superpower (The speech in Texas).
Coal and Gas.
All the eggs in the one basket dominated by major corporations such as Chevron that will produce a large GDP with minimal return to the citizens(Nation) whilst pushing a high $A that puts competitive pressure on all other export oriented industries, forcing wage and conditions reductions
If you want to support agriculture you need to get people living outside of the capital cities. I once knew of a government infrastructure project that would have made modern life in rural areas that much more accessible.
Money is power and in Australia most wealth is tied up in property in capital cities. The two major parties do not have the capacity or will to do anything that will compromise land values in our major cities.
There are some amazing small manufacturing and design companies in Australia in small rural cities. Unfortunately the government prefers to rely on handouts to political mates rather than provide infrastructure that would enable real opportunity to anybody and everybody with a will to innovate.
“One implication of that principle, I believe, is that if Australia has a world class, large scale resources industry, or agriculture industry, then the development of IT applications and services to make that industry more productive and efficient might be a niche where Australian companies have an advantage.”
Umm…isn’t that one of the main functions of the CSIRO? You know, the same CSIRO the government just cut a huge chunk of funding and jobs from?
The Liberal party…what a pack of morons…
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