Australia Wants to be an Innovation Nation

When Malcolm Turnbull assumed the prime ministership of Australia there was a noted change in the government's language. The negative, fearful, and provincial anxieties of Tony Abbott were removed from the lexicon, replaced with Turnbull’s big picture enthusiasm sprinkled with Silicon Valley buzzwords.

In an address to the media upon securing the leadership of the country he stated: “The Australia of the future has to be a nation that is agile, that is innovative, that is creative.” Signaling his awareness of global trends, and desire to shift the economy away from a reliance on natural resources, large industrial production, and manufacturing, he further added: “We have to recognize that the disruption that we see driven by technology, the volatility in change, is our friend if we are agile and smart enough to take advantage.”

Australia has weathered the current revolutions in technology and offshoring reasonably well. While certain regions like South Australia are reliant on industries prone to dramatic change in technology, demand, and location, the country as a whole has not experienced a recession in almost 25 years. Yet as a high-wage-small-population-distant-location country the specter of major market shifts for semi-skilled labor remains ever-present.

While the campaign for the July 2 election includes the usual petty sniping and negative hyperbole that is standard fare for modern democracies, both the Labor and Liberal parties have recognized the importance of adapting to modern realities and are seeking to convince the electorate of their respective credentials as drivers of innovation.

A 2015 report from PricewaterhouseCoopers stated that Australia would gain $57.4 billion in GDP if just 1 percent of the workforce shifted into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) focused positions, and this line of thinking has inspired both major parties to heavily promote STEM-related education as a necessity during their campaigns. 

Turnbull’s Liberal Party stated it would dedicate $4.6 million toward 12 pilot schools that would focus on STEM-related technical and vocational education, and that seek to create relationships between these schools and their related industries. Alongside this, the party has floated the idea that either science or mathematics should be compulsory subjects for the final two years of secondary school (curriculum is a predominantly state-based issue the federal government can’t mandate). 

The Labor Party has developed a plan to encourage 100,000 new students (especially women) to study STEM-related degrees with the pledge to write off their student debts upon completion, alongside teaching scholarships for 25,000 STEM graduates. Both parties hope to encourage the learning of computer coding skills during both primary and secondary schooling, and will entice foreign students graduating with advanced degrees in STEM-related subjects to remain in the country.

While both major parties hope to inspire a more technologically literate population, a serious conflict exists between them over the necessary improvement to telecommunications infrastructure.

The previous Labor government recognized that the existing copper cable network was reaching the end of its life, and sought to replace this with high-speed optical fiber, under a scheme known as the National Broadband Network (NBN). However, upon losing office in 2013, the NBN was reduced by the Liberal-headed conservative Coalition government from a scheme providing fiber cable to each premises, to one providing cable only to a neighborhood node, using the existing copper cable to connect from node to individual premises. This reduced the capacity of the network significantly.

Presently, Australia has average internet speeds of 8.2 megabits per second (mbps), placing it 48th in a global study of connection speeds. South Korea, the global leader, has average speeds of 26.7 mbps. 

Although, as Prime Minister Tony Abbott stated in 2013, a forecasted 25 mbps was “more than enough” for a household, in the United States, telecommunications companies have recently begun rolling out fiber that can handle 2 gigabits per second (there are 1,000 megabits in a gigabit). 

The viability of future industries will rely on and be attracted to high-speed broadband connections in order to facilitate their ideas and practices. Although both parties support a new Entrepreneur Visa specifically focused on attracting technology-based startups to Australia, the conditions to attract these entrepreneurs will remain limited without competitive broadband speeds.

The right infrastructure will also be necessary if the government wishes to attract the estimated 20,000 Australians currently working in Silicon Valley back to the country.

The Liberal Party has promised to encourage start-ups with tax offsets and capital gains tax exemptions, yet as the congregation of talent is a major philosophy of the digital industry standard government incentives may not be sufficient.

The dramatic changes in markets over the past 30 years have been a boon for humanity, but a quandary for developed countries. Since 1980 China has reduced its extreme poverty rate from 84 percent of the population to now less than 10 percent; a glorious achievement. Yet the developed world feels fatigued with the constant evolution necessary to maintain high standards of living.

In an era where innovation is outpacing education it is highly prudent for both of Australia’s major parties to be stressing the importance of a technologically aware education. Of course, the paradox is that the more innovative a society, the greater the change. In this regard, a focus solely on improving STEM literacy, and the environment for it to flourish, is only part of the solution. Developing the social capital, global awareness and emotional intelligence to handle modernity’s exponential change is also essential.