Innovation White Paper Delayed: Department Overworked

For those not up on this news, the White Paper response to the National Innovation Revew report, Venturous Australia, will be delayed into next year.

As the Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research points out here:

"As a result of today's announcement, we now know that it will be over a year after election before the Rudd Government actually takes any real action to deliver their promises on the national innovation system, and the TCF sector."

As such, there is an even greater for opportunity for the government to engage in debate, discussion and development of policy beyond a mere response to the Venturous Australia report.

Here's hoping that they will take that opportunity!

Why the Innovation Policy White Paper needs to be open to comment

Venturous Australia has been released.

The deadline for comment has expired.

The next step is the preparation of the government's policy response, which will be in the form of a White Paper containing the policies for the term of the government, and presumably a schedule for implementation of the policy. A draft is expected at the end of October (yes, only about four weeks away).

The Innovation Review Secretariat has advised that no decision has yet been made about opening the White Paper up to public comment.

There are very important reasons why it should be open to comment, and the policy debate continued before the final White Paper is released in December this year.

Most importantly, the policy framework from Venturous Australia needs rigorous debate and discussion before implementation. There are too many questions posed and suggestions made without examination of the systemic implications for our National Innovation System. In our specialist area of the R&D tax concession (perhaps soon to be credits), we have identified a number of failures and deficiencies in the proposed models, each of which will require further debate and discussion. Had the panel members presented their recommendations in draft and ensured that they fully engaged companies and advisors in the process, there may not have been a need for review of the White Paper.

The worst thing that government could do is to leave this to the legislative process, and the likelihood of Senate committee processes.

Senator Carr has opened the debate on innovation policy. The expert panel has made recommendations. Now we need to explore the policy response, and this should be exposed to public comment and scrutiny in the time remaining.

What do you think?