Mr. Emerson's time would be better spent looking for ideas his Government doesn't seem to have to cushion the blow of the current economic crisis.

The Rudd Government's floudering and handing out spending money in the hope that it will make them look good this Christmas, at least, shows the complete dearth of ideas at his command and that of his party colleagues.

While it is essential to create and encourage a socio-economic environment in which ideas can be generated and shared, equally important is an understanding of the processes of innovation. Innovation is the process of transforming an idea into something that works. The widely accepted statistics indicate that only about one percent of ideas survive the innovation process. If we want greater public benefit from ideas, do we develop policies to generate more ideas, or to improve the likelihood of ideas being successfully innovated? Australia is already renowned as an inventive country- undoubtedly because of our open, progressive culture. Innovation is much harder, as it requires a wide array of resources to be marshalled- including the "4 Ms"- money, management markets and manpower.

Despite the obvious need, there are very few courses in innovation at any level of education. There is not one coherent textbook on the subject at any level, although there are many colections of the anecdotes and musings of industrial "heroes".

The recent Cutler Report (Venturous Australia- www.innovation.gov.au/innovationreview/Documents/NIS-review-web.pdf)recommends the establishment of a National Innovation Studies Centre. This is a necessary first step in establishing not only a creative culture but also an innovative culture.

Without this, we will continue to see ideas failing to be innovated, to the detriment of our society and economy.

The investment in education will not of itself create wealth, nor will it be fully rewarded if government policies, e.g, on tax, regulation and industrial relations, do not encourage enterprise and the creation and retention of wealth. Many existing and proposed policy initiatives are inimical to best use of the expanding base of knowledge and ideas.

Sustained economic growth requires policies which embrace openness, competition, change and innovation. Policies which have the effect of restricting or slowing change by protecting or favouring particular industries or firms, such as the totally unwarranted massive assistance to the PMV makers, divert resources to nonviable activities and inhibit growth in the new and potentially viable enterprises which Emerson hopes will emerge from enhanced education.

In addition, a shortage of ideas has not been a problem in Australia; the capacity to develop marketable products and services is a bigger issue, which will persist in part because product development requires access to and close interaction with the major markets of the US, Europe and East Asia. Craig needs to take on retro ministers such as Carr, Rudd and Swan if he is to get value from his laudable push to raise human capital.

Unfortunately this article perpetuates the misconception that ideas alone are enough to grow an economy. Ideas are great but useless unless the energy to implement them exists. What we started to do with the Industrial Revolution was to use exogenous forms of energy in a big way. Ideas (inventions) facilitated this but without the energy to implement them nothing would have happened. First they cut down the trees, then they turned to coal, and finally mainly to oil providing over 200 years of increasing energy use resulting in economic growth. Now we are at the peak of oil production and coal will peak by 2025. Net energy is probably in decline right now meaning that economic growth in the future will be impossible. This is the "big rollover" that has been predicted for a number of years - The breaking of a 200+ year trend. Ideas may help us to cope with it but they will not be able to thwart the energy barrier to growth. And if you think that renewables will be able to step up to fill the gap then think again - read Ted Trainers analysis, “Renewable energy - cannot sustain an energy intensive society” ( http://ssis.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/REcant.html )

Jedimaster, in the absence of a "coherent textbook", I'd strongly recommend Chris Golis's "Enterprise and Venture Capital - A Business Builders' and Investors' Handbook". This is an excellent work by an experienced venture capitalist and entrepreneur, for current and budding entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, policymakers and anyone interested in how innovation and R&D gets translated into saleable product. I think the original was in the 1980s, currently there is a fourth edition (Allen & Unwin, April 2002), with a new A&U edition due next year. Read and enjoy; send a copy to Craig.

So Craig, where are the ideas in Rudd’s massive growth momentum?

Not many new ideas there at that I can see. Just a fulfilment of his chronic me-tooism, by following just the same old strategy as Howard.

O o oh, sorry. Of course…you were referring to schools and universities, not to our illustirous fedral guvment (:>/