Stab in the back for Aussie innovation

If the reports are true that significant cuts are planned for Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) it will be one of the biggest mistakes, if not the biggest mistake, of the Abbott Government.

Other spending curbs projected in the May Budget are harsh – I would much prefer to see these mitigated by increases in taxation – but as short-term measures in place while the economy improves, they can probably be lived with.

But a cutback in research endangers a lifeline, perhaps the only lifeline, to a reasonable future for the people of Western developed nations such as Australia.

Politicians have long been saying the nation’s economy is “in transition”. The question really is “in transition to what?” Prime Minister Tony Abbott sees the free trade deals with Japan, South Korea and potentially China as the way forward.

These agreements will certainly mean cheaper cars and, to a lesser extent, cheaper electrical goods for Australian consumers. Going the other way, farmers and miners should benefit.

They will, however, lock Australia in as a food and natural resource exporter with some back-up from education and tourism. The base is narrow, and vulnerable to factors such as climate change and overseas political and economic crises over which the country has no control.

This is just the time when we should be looking to our entrepreneurs, researchers and scientists – our best inventive brains – to come up with the products and technologies that are going to entice consumers in the 2020s, 30s and beyond. We need people who will think outside the box, not within the box of primary production and digging things out of the ground.

Unfortunately Australia’s managerial class has become complacent and risk averse – and our best brains are going to realise from the cuts to CSIRO that they have no future here.

Who will blame them if they head for the United States where the thinking and culture is so very different? One example:

American car-makers are suffering from the same Asian competition that ended the industry here, but a vigorous young company called Tesla is fighting back by designing and manufacturing electric cars and components, and in just a decade has produced the first fully-electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster, and the Model S, the first full-electric luxury sedan.

Hard going at first but the company is now posting profits and plans a $6 billion factory to produce its own lithium-ion batteries. It may yet be many years before fossil fuels become prohibitively expensive as easily accessible reserves run low, but in the US Tesla and others are already working on the alternatives.

Interestingly, Tesla Motors is named after electrical engineer and physicist Nikola Tesla whose 19^th and early 20^th century designs included the ancestor of the electric motors the company now uses. Tesla was doing his best work around the same time that Australians were inventing the world’s first refrigerator, electric drills, full-length feature films and, open to dispute, the aeroplane.

Today Australia’s innovative spirit remains – the Scramjet is just one example – but cuts to the CSIRO’s budget send the wrong message. As former Victorian Chief Scientist Sir Gustav Nossal says, CSIRO can produce research results that will sponsor innovation and help create smarter industries that will be needed when the mining boom finally fades.

Unfortunately the vision of our industry leaders and politicians does not extend that far.