Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. Can I say, Mr Speaker, and I say to the honourable member in particular, who has in her electorate Deakin University—which is a university that is committed to driving innovation—innovation in advanced manufacturing—and who has a community that understands that the transition from conventional manufacturing to more advanced and more sophisticated technology is absolutely critical to Australia's continued success: the unquestionable fact of life for us is that if we are to maintain our success as a high wage, generous social welfare net, first world economy, if we want our children and grandchildren to have high quality jobs, well paying jobs, then we have to be at the frontier of innovation.

What we need to do in many respects is to change the culture of business and of government. We need to move to a culture that does not assume the way you did things yesterday is any longer appropriate, that you have got to be prepared to look at new approaches all the time. Because the simple fact is that the pace of change has never been so rapid. That is the biggest characteristic of the global economy at the moment: the extraordinary rapid pace of change. It is driven by technology; it is driven by globalisation. It means that every business, every government, every firm—large or small—has to be proactive, has to be innovative and has to be constantly looking at new things.

Now many people would say this is all about the digital economy and this is all about brilliant young men and women coming up with new applications—and of course that is very important, and we have seen terrific progress in that regard—but it is also about older businesses. It is also about manufacturing businesses. It is about farming. It is about government. It is about the—

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