Why Australia’s innovation transformation won’t happen overnight

Malcolm Turnbull’s Prime Ministership began on September 15, 2015, and he quickly made it clear upon doing so that his cabinet’s focus would be on fostering the development of a more – and please excuse the buzzwords –  “agile, innovative and creative” Australia.

Shortly thereafter, Turnbull announced the National Innovation and Science agenda (NISA), which was established to help Australians ‘embrace new ideas in innovation and science, and harness new sources of growth to deliver the next age of economic prosperity in Australia’.

As is to be expected when it comes to matters of politics, it didn’t take long for people to question the Turnbull experiment.

While the electorate has every right to and should be encouraged to question government policies and performance, these questions should be educated and substantiated, otherwise they become both damaging and dangerous.

Jeremy Liddle questioned whether the government’s innovation agenda is simply a $1.1b cash splash for votes, which may have some merit, while others have simply gone on to brandish the Turnbull experiment a failure.

It’s at this point that I’d like to remind you that it’s been less than 6 months since NISA was announced.

Regardless of whether the government’s innovation agenda is a genuine effort to support the country’s future prosperity or a vote grabbing campaign, effectively fostering innovation at a national level does not happen overnight, especially not in Australia.

Why?

1. Australia’s conservative culture

One commentator referred to Australia’s deeply risk-averse business community, dominated by rent-seeking oligopolists who influence policy makers, as a key reason behind why the country will never become the next Silicon Valley.

Innovation is supported by taking lots of small bets, embracing and celebrating smart failures that come with these bets and iterating towards a successful formula, which flies in the face of a conservative ‘avoid failure and looking stupid at all costs’ mentality. As PayPal, Tesla and Space-X founder Elon Musk says, “if things are not failing, you’re not innovating enough.”

Furthermore, Dave Gray, co-author of the Culture Map, rightly says that “culture change is a marathon, not a sprint.”

2. Australia, the “nanny state”

Former Australian F1 driver Mark Webber said in a 2010 interview that Australia is “a great country, but we’ve got to be responsible for our actions and it’s certainly a bloody nanny state when it comes to what we can do” in response to being impounded by police for doing burnouts in Melbourne days before the city’s instalment of the F1 Grand Prix. But perhaps there was more to these comments than mere frustration.

Creating an environment to support innovation is one thing – reaping the rewards is another.