James Riley
Tuesday, 20 July 2010 13:26
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
The National Broadband Network is the biggest industry development program ever undertaken in this country. Let's hope it works, because it's a huge chunk of change to throw at faster movie downloads.
Because if Australia cannot create an environment that can incubate a small innovative Australian start-up into becoming a large, innovative Australian-based multinational, all we are buying for $43 billion is faster access to other people’s product.
The irony that one of Labor's best policy programs shines a light on one of its notable failings should not be lost on anyone.
The NBN was the Big Idea all through 2007 in the run up to the last election. It was the Rudd plank that signalled the future, signalled generational change, and signalled optimism.
Then the idea got bigger, and so did the optimism. Even looking from the outside, the policy implementation has been a wild ride – and we don’t get to see the blood on the walls from the battles that got the project to where it is today. On track.
But what are we going to do with it? Where are the Big Idea programs that will make sure we squeeze every bit of value possible from this investment?
Labor's industry development program for the information technology sector is a stand-out failure, crippled by structural flaws that will take a portfolio restructure to fix. And it will need the ongoing hands-on attention of the Prime Minister, particularly in relation to achieving the broader social and economic goals associated with the NBN.
The Howard Government created a separate Information Technology portfolio, which was then a part of the Department of Communications, IT and the Arts, originally under Richard Alston.
At the time, the internet was new-fangled, the term dotcom meant "a sure thing," and the prevailing view was that the tech sector needed special treatment to make Australia got its fair share of a fast growing global market.
Through its years in Opposition, Labor pilloried the arrangement. The thinking was because the tech sector is a horizontal industry, separating it as a special case by treating it like a vertical would be counterproductive and a lot of industry development dollars would get burned for little result.
Hindsight tells us both sides were completely right. And when both sides are right, we inevitably end up with a mess. Which brings us to now.
OK, so portfolio responsibility for IT is back in the Industry Department where Labor always thought it belonged. Labor didn't disagree with the Howard Government that IT was a special case and needed special treatment – but its thinking was a bigger spotlight could be shined on IT from inside Industry, where it would naturally feed into the industry development programs of other sectors, from the auto industry to health to manufacturing to transport and logistics.
Moving IT into Industry has had the opposite effect from the intended. There is no spotlight on the sector and it is lost in a sea of generalist policy.
