With innovation being Mr Toorbul's latest buzz word, shouldn't he be looking at the restricting IR laws that see our potential innovators being expected to i9novate with one hand tied behind their backs.

Firstly, to innovate, one would expect many employment houses to 'up skill', however, in order to up skill they have the replace other workers which is unlawful.

While I have often mentioned how ridiculous this situation is, the fact remains the laws are there and potential innovators will not invest if they fear being sued for unfair dismissal.

Of cause once this hurdle if overcome (don't hold your breath) we then have the issue of wage and associated running costs because as it stands you cant continue to pay our people $300 per day while OS operations pay $5 per day, sometimes for superior workmanship.

if we don't treat the underlying issues that have caused our anti competitiveness, Innovation will remain a buzz word

Why should upskilling involve replacing workers rather than training them? The latter would add more value to our economy; the former would probably result in a skilled worker shortage.

"Of cause once this hurdle if overcome (don't hold your breath) we then have the issue of wage and associated running costs because as it stands you cant continue to pay our people $300 per day while OS operations pay $5 per day, sometimes for superior workmanship."
The whole point of innovation is that our workers can continue to do things worth over $300 per day. We should not try to compete for the jobs worth $5 per day.

Our anticompetitiveness is largely a myth. Over the last few years we have had a competitiveness problem due to an overvalued dollar, but more recently the dollar's fallen to a level where that's no longer a problem.

The trouble here is the word innovation, in today’s lingo it has about 40 different scenario’s.

....Our anticompetitiveness is largely a myth. Over the last few years we have had a competitiveness problem due to an overvalued dollar, but more recently the dollar's fallen to a level where that's no longer a problem.

Dream on Aidan.

About the only innovation we could hope for is to design something, then have it manufactured OS, which by the way is what many do now.

Even our design work is in the firing line with the NBN making outsourcing that much easier as for the cost of one executive here, its been suggested you can hire an entire team to work 24/7 in the likes of Singapore.

As I say, dream on.

Meanwhile, our leaders will remain focused on the outcome (innovation) and no doubt ignore what it will take to get there, skills, costs etc.

We have an almighty governmental deficit problem. To resolve it we could:

* increase taxes... but the electorate doesn't want to hear that and just got rid of a PM/Treasurer who proposed it. And the current leadership doesn't want to do anything to spook the herd.

* decrease spending but...see above.
* increase our productivity. But the usual suspects will just shout "workchoices" and...spooked herd.

So, the political solution is to shout "innovation". We'll innovate, that'll make us more competitive, that'll generate more income for the nation, that'll mean more taxes raised, that'll solve the insoluble deficit problem. Presto, problem solved. Now can we can get back to talking about the really important issues like the world being a little bit warming in 100 years time (/sarc off).

The best part for the political class is that all this will take time but also buy time. A worsening deficit in 2016 - not a problem..we're innovating. Projected deficits to 2030 - we're innovating. AAA rating under threat - hey we're innovating.

Innovation will allow the problem to be kicked down the road while they claim they are addressing it.

And best of all, because it buys time, all those currently squibbing the problem will be long into tax-payer funded retirement long before it becomes clear that the only thing we innovated was a way to avoid the problem.

We had a PM that took money away from innovators the CSIRO so their only option was to sell it elsewhere to survive. When someone innovates we do not do anything with it, just allow it to be manufactured over-seas.
Australia needs an innovation centre, with science and manufacturing combined.
All of AU’s defense equipment should be made here, it’s all to easy to get it from elsewhere. We were lucky to get the Jeeps made here, even though we have the necessary equipment. When Vietnam was on there was a bomb case in every corner of the place in the same facilities.