I think you're forgetting something!

You should also consider the contribution that the humanities, arts and social sciences make to innovation, not only as a support act for science, but in their own right. You seem to be stuck in a 20th century smoke-stack view of industry and innovation.

The recent report by the Productivity Commission on Science and Innovation recognises this (after specifically excluding HASS in its terms of reference). Check it out - it's a remarkable revision from a economic group not noted for its warm heart.

And as Daniel Pink says in his new book A Whole New Mind:

"The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind – computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers. These people – artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers – will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys"

I could go on....

Just the usual twaddle.

Innovation occurs when bright people address a problem in a non-conventional manner. This happens most often when the environment is conducive to thinking in a non-conventional manner.

Unfortunately, Australia is the true home of the bureaucrat.

We are far happier setting up committees to review procedures that were written by another committee, than coming to grips with anything that departs from nineteenth-century orthodoxy.

Take a look behind the authors' statement "The Federal Government’s Backing Australia’s Ability - Building our Future through Science and Innovation package commits to $5.3 billion over seven years from 2004-05"

Take a look at where those billions actually go. Take a look at the multiplicity of "schemes". Try to fill out, just for fun, one of the application forms that allow you a glimpse of the innovation cornucopia.

Having had a couple of mild flirtations with this and other systems over the years, their objective is about as far removed from the concept of innovation as it is possible to get.

The entire process is run as a command-and-control exercise, by and for bureaucrats. It bears about as much relation to the fostering of innovation as aspirin does to curing the bubonic plague.

>>Much has been done to bolster the top end, very little at the grass roots<<

The authors here, typically, confuse activity with progress. Because the government appears to be throwing money at the problem, all that is left is for the "grass roots" to do their bit.

Come on people. You're slacking.

It would be fascinating to discover i) how much of this $5.3 billion of largesse finds its way into the pockets of the folk who "administer" these (and previous) schemes, ii) how much actually reaches the bank accounts of ventures with a genuinely innovative bent and iii) what outcomes in the form of products or services actually find their way, blinking into the open, into the world of real life that the rest of us live in.

I can guarantee that not only is this information unavailable, it will be heavily protected from any prying FOI attempts.

Thug get off the grass mate.

Arty farty's and dreamers get nowhere, its the doers that are the innovators.

Do you think one day someone is going to knock on your door and give you all you secretly desire......no.

Australia's problem can the found in the education system , outcomes based education systems produces students whose brains run on rails , straight line thinkers lost in enquires , muddled by math incompetence , addled by reading incoherently , and defunct in the ability to dream and scheme on a technical level .