Future Fund Chairman, David Murray   Photo: Louie Douvis

 Future Fund Chairman, David Murray, Warns Federal Government Not to Reduce Spending on Research and Development. (September 14, 2006)

    Mr David Murray, former chief executive of the Commonwealth Bank, current chairman of the Board of Guardians of the Federal Government's Future Fund and chair of the Business, Industry and Higher Education Collaboration Council has come out strongly in favour of increased support for Australian research and development by both the public and private sectors.

On Wednesday at the University of Sydney's Computing of the Future symposium he told his audience, "The commencement of a generally applicable technology is always a turning point for the economy," and went on to stress the importance of continual investment in research and development. ""If we make the big breakouts from generally applicable technologies, it is too easy to forget basic research. Many would reduce the funding for basic research and concentrate on applied research."

But Mr Murray warned that this entices some into attempting to calculate the value of research, which is dangerous, because it's like "trying to explain how you leant to ride a bicycle". The chairman of the Future Fund said the Federal Government must not use its Productivity Commission study on the economic gains produced by new technologies as a tool to reduce spending on research and development, and he recommended that Australia increase research funding by 25% in order to at least reach the mean level of other OECD countries.

Mr Murray also referred to education and training in Australia. He said the most urgent issue is maths, science and engineering and the industries need to understand why school leavers aren't going on to study computer science. "There should be funding into upgrading science and engineering at universities." And he made the point, "The best people to have in a bank are chemical engineers because they work on processes."