Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the successful launch of the government's National Innovation and Science Agenda? How important is this agenda for jobs and growth?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to 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—

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is about school education.

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

The honourable member says it is about education. It absolutely is. And that is why we are devoting millions of dollars to promote coding in schools so that our children have digital literacy, because that is going to be just as important as reading, writing and arithmetic was to most of us when we were at school. These changes also affect the rate of investment. Because of the leadership the government is showing, we are starting to see some of these big superannuation funds for the first time investing more into the start-up sector. That is where leadership matters. It is where the change of culture, the business culture, matters and where we will see the prosperity for our children and grandchildren in the future.