New federal Industry Minister Arthur Sinodinos says he is going to make ‘collaboration’ the hallmark of his new portfolio. He has also recommitted the Turnbull Government to putting science and innovation at the centre of things. “I really want to nail this issue,” he said in his recent speech at the Press Club.
This is all good. Sinodinis grew up in a manufacturing region (the Hunter) and his father was a member of the Seamen’s Union – so he had a certain grounding. But, Sinodinis also worked in the Federal Treasury for 14 years, which was probably a countervailing force.
Anyway, Arthur says that collaboration ties together everything we do in the research and innovation spaces, and it uses industry links to commercialise what we do. But he added, “It’s also an issue in the portfolio that requires work.”
I’m presuming he was referring to the 2012 OECD report putting Australia last out of 27 countries in terms of collaboration between researchers and businesses.
Minister Sinodinis’ speech did not discuss what measures could be implemented to improve the level of collaboration. However, he did announce a few days earlier $150 million for four new Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) projects – High Performing Soils, Honey Bee Products, Food Agility (digital technologies) and iMove (intelligent transport systems).
That’s a good start, but the anecdotal evidence is that CRC researchers are not powerful collaborators. In this regard, the industry clustering literature suggests that collaboration doesn’t come naturally to a lot of folk – because they are shy, or feel out of their depth, or are simply disconnected. However the literature says that collaboration can be taught. And a proven way to do this is to get people involved in a great project, where each person needs to collaborate with others to realise the outcome. Certainly in my own experience, getting people connected and empowered is a sensible management technique, and it can lead to some great outcomes.
I wonder if Minister Sinodinos could develop and drive projects using the power of collaboration, and include local government in the mix. This might help the Turnbull Government brush off the “all talk and no action” criticism, while also getting forward momentum.
For example, a colleague recently returned from the Avalon Air Show in raptures about the organisational skills of the Victorians. He instanced also the Grand Prix, Australia Tennis Open, Melbourne Cup. His question was how can Australia excel in these avenues, but be so bloody hopeless at manufacturing. He says our aircraft industry is disappearing along with motor vehicles, whitegoods, textiles, clothing and footwear, rolling stock, etc. because “no one seems to be willing to even talk about doing something!” He wonders what support systems the Swiss and Brazilians must have to be trotting out quality aircraft at Avalon.
My colleague certainly has a point. Taking a lead from Sinodinis, could a working group develop ideas about how we might reconstruct our aviation industry? I can think of numerous companies, state agencies and 10 or so local councils that should have an interest. Indeed ideas that come to mind are (i) reintroduction of a modified offsets program to leverage our massive expenditure on French, US and British defence equipment, (ii) incentives to attract more international airlines to train their engineering, office and flying staff here, and (iii) commercial intelligence to identify overseas companies open to moving some functions to Australia.
The bottom line is that governments need to push the envelope. Most voters expect governments to be progressive and to pull disparate players together to create investment opportunities and jobs. There has been an industry policy vacuum for a least a decade. Let’s hope that Arthur Sinodinos can embrace collaboration to carve out some forward-looking initiatives such as in the aviation industry.
Attracting urban-based companies to the Bush
The congestion and housing costs in our two biggest cities – and to a lesser extent Brisbane – are arguably the result of agglomeration effects. And there are valid reasons for policies to offset or at least ameliorate these effects. We figure that there are numerous city-based companies that would happily relocate to rural areas if there were modest incentive packages on offer i.e. to get them thinking about the lifestyle and work-style benefits of rural cities and towns, while taking a capital gain on their urban industrial properties and simultaneously opening up urban land for housing.
The Cockatoo Network proposes to do some work in this space, and we are inviting a dozen or so rural councils to sponsor our work. If you can see the opportunity, please contact us!
RED Tool Box
I had an interesting call last week from John Sheridan (Queensland). He has developed a website to identify collaborative people and to progress best practice ideas and initiatives.
We thus propose getting involved in his program, and hope that you might too. The blog and forum arrangements will take shape in coming weeks, and we will run some project ideas in them. The regional snapshots are another feature – we will prepare snapshots of the ACT, Gippsland and Riverina regions until other people come on board.
His program also has the potential to provide an umbrella for various regional development agencies that find it hard to connect viz. Economic Development Australia (EDA), Australia New Zealand Regional Science Association International (ANZRSAI), Regional Development Institute, Sustainable Economic Growth Regional Australia (SEGRA), Regional Development Australia (RDA) Committees, Cockatoo Network et al. Go to
theredtoolbox.org
Rod Brown is a Canberra-based consultant and lobbyist specialising in industry/regional development, investment attraction and clusters, and accessing federal grants. He also runs the Cockatoo Network.
Phone: (02) 6231 7261 or 0412 922 559
Email: apdcockatoo@iprimus.com.au
Blog: investmentinnovation.wordpress.com (750+articles)
