Visy Industries Chairman, Richard Pratt, to Give Australia Day address. (January 24, 2005)

   Visy Industries operates more than 100 manufacturing facilities in Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia and the USA with nearly 8,000 employees. Through the Pratt Foundation, Richard Pratt and his family are among Australia’s major private philanthropists.

ABC radio will broadcast Mr Pratt's Australia Day address at 12M on Radio National. Here is an excerpt which may be of particular interest to academics and researchers. Whether or not the federal coalition will find it so or simply shrug it off remains to be seen.

Ladies and gentlemen, when most of us speak about infrastructure we’re thinking about large-scale investment in roads, railways, airports, seaports, and the like.
 

But there’s another kind of long-term infrastructure investment which is just as important:
 

And that is our spending on education, research and development.
 

In other words, our knowledge infrastructure.
 

On the latest figures, the Australian government ranked ninth amongst OECD countries in its R&D spending.
 

The same figures showed that R&D spending by Australian business ranked 18^th among OECD countries.
 

Australia can do better.
 

Of my two proposals in this area, one is based on a Canadian initiative, and the other on an American scheme.
 

But I believe both are relevant to Australia.
 

In 2000, aware that it had lost ground in R&D investment, the Canadian government set aside one billion dollars to establish the Canada research chairs program.
 

The aim, was to establish 2,000 new research professorships across 73 Canadian universities over five years, and become one of the five leading nations in R&D.
 

With more than a year still to go, Canada has established more than 1,300 of these research positions. The program has already had a major impact.
 

Australia has 37 universities, just half the number of those in Canada’s program. So we can be more modest and still make an enormous difference.
 

A joint venture by Australia’s government and business sector to establish 500 new research chairs over five years here, would resonate dramatically and beneficially.
 

My idea is that the federal government would fund the chairs, and business, acting through a body such as the business council of Australia, would provide the entrepreneurial mentors. They could help the researchers with such matters as finding venture capital markets and commercialisation.
 

If such a scheme cost us a billion dollars over five years, it would still be money well spent.

Mr Pratt's second proposal "is directed towards helping Australian families to contribute towards the cost of a tertiary education", and he has specific proposals with regard to "social investment or philanthropy, particularly corporate philanthropy".

The full text of Mr Pratt's address is available through http://www.australiaday.com.au/australia_day_address.html.