The old model of Australian manufacturing gave us massive union power who recently funded the return to government of the ALP, their political wing. They are not well disposed to high tech industries who do not employ lots of drone members, why should they be? Their support is not assured, nor is their funding if something else should become available, it is not a recipe for sustained development.

You have a huge problem to overcome with culture in our manufacturing industry that you hope to sweep under the carpet with the new green mantra of Emerging Technologies.

These CRC are money sinks and great places to work for academics, who don't have to meet cash flow objectives or profit projections, do they even know what those are, I wonder. It's all about spin though isn't it?

We have a few, a very few, high tech industries who have managed to win overseas work at enormous cost to the taxpayer, and maybe a few more to come. No more than our statistical allowance really, nothing special there at all. It does not mean Australians are better at this, we've just had our share of good fortune and being in the right place at the right time.

I have huge doubts about this whole wishful thinking behavior of the green industry, that somehow we will develop all these emerging technologies and they will replace all the other industries that the green types want to see wiped out. it has no basis in reality, it smacks of youthful enthusiasm of someone who is not in business and attends too many seminars on how good it's going to be.

You want to develop business, it's not difficult, lower the tax rates, give us reasonable employment conditions, don't hang millstones around our necks and let us (yes us, the ones who take risks and run businesses) reinvest a share of our profits in R&D unencumbered by government and academics who think they know better - the fact you are not in business and want to give me advice is laughable.

There is an elephant in the room that dare not be mentioned. High tech modern industry is not labor intensive, it is capital and technology intensive. Modern car companies show that output these days is maximised using robotics and fewer people. The less people that develop software the faster and better it is. Committee design just doesn't work. (Which is why most government attempts at technology "leadership" fail.)
True, companies cannot be tied down by inflexible labor forces particularly when the markets are changing so quickly. Also true, a country must have employed population to be viable as a country. We can't all choose rich parents.
The current "solution" of make-work and excessive middle management...business as adult daycare, must end; However extremely high unemployment is not the answer either.
Part of the solution is population control, part reduced working hours, part re-enabling family wealth (company profits must return to reasonable levels), and part public spending on R&D to future proof society.
Sorry rpg, we have just seen what happens when "important" businesses are given too free a reign. They implode with greed and inefficiency. Small business must be allowed to operate with minimal interference, but *not* totally unfettered. Sometimes history teaches lessons that are lost in the fog of day to day operations and it is indeed governments job to govern. (They are very poor at leading or ruling but they can at least govern. Democracy is the safety valve.)

I'm disappointed in this article, Leon - its little more than a puff piece for the AMCRC

Not only emerging industries but also existing manufacturing that we have lost and that needs to be recovered here so as to reduce our foreign debt, our balance of payments crisis and our unemployment levels.
We are at about 10 or 11% manufacturing as the portion of our workforce presently and this is shrinking further.

Ozandy - "we have just seen yada yada implode with greed and inefficiency." I'm not sure what you mean here. What manufacturers have you seen implode, apart from heavily unionized (government subsidized of course) businesses that become uncompetitive and , I agreed, become adult daycare.

Free up R&D and Export grants for small to medium business, at the moment you cannot get a grant without such overbearing investment and reporting - lots start out having a go and give up. Few companies engage in CRCs, oh I'm sure you have a huge list of companies, who have registered their marketing manager, in the hope something comes their way, tell me if I'm wrong.

Red tape in the present R&D schemes is out of control, the government won't back anything unless it is GUARANTEED a winner, and if you can do that, you don't need a grant.

The USA has a tax reinvestment scheme that is simple and amazingly, you'll be stunned by this - it works! (without CRCs or PHDs) this of course allows the companies themselves to reinvest their money, not the government guided by academics who don't run businesses making business investment decisions (which is farcical)

If you want to see manufacturing evolve and improve, then stick to business fundamentals, a bold plan for business developed by academics is just a bad joke. You take money from businesses as tax then give to CRCs to "play at business".

The problem we all face is lack of cash due to tax and socialised R&D. Who says that the best way to develop R&D in a country is to have the government and academia picking winners anyway?

We can help create conditions for sustained economic growth, but can’t determine which industries will flourish when we do. Growth is about transformation, about change. Policies which embrace openness, competition, change and innovation will promote growth. Policies which have the effect of restricting or slowing change by protecting or favouring particular industries or firms are likely over time to slow growth to the disadvantage of the community. So policy-makers need to understand the drivers of economic growth, and whether and how policy can influence them. Policies developed without this understanding, and particularly those with mainly political objectives, are unlikely to be successful, and have often had serious negative consequences both economically and politically.

Over the last 20 years, variations in growth between regions and countries have increasingly been explained by “endogenous” growth theory, in which growth depends on characteristics of the economic environment rather than on exogenous factors. Explanations with the clearest implications for policy come from “Schumpeterian” growth theory, based on the notion of “creative destruction.” They stress the dynamic nature of modern economies and the importance of change - including firm entry and exit - in driving growth in productivity and national income.

This has implications not only for policies which are clearly economic in nature, but also a wide range of policies which affect economic outcomes, for example in education and training, social welfare, regulation and provision of infrastructure services. For example, arguing that longer school attendance or more tertiary education will boost growth is meaningless unless you understanding the underlying connections and can demonstrate that the proposed use of resources exceeds their opportunity cost (the best risk-adjusted rate of return on alternative uses, including tax cuts).

Briefly, we need policies which make it easier for firms to create and retain wealth, whatever their scale, industry or export-focus. More specifics later!