PM Addresses Members of Government Senior Executive Service. (May 2, 2008)

 As Budget day approaches Kevin Rudd took time to speak to the Federal government's Senior Executive Service, with universities and research getting a bit of a mention.

He told his audience:

Alongside an exhaustive spending review process for the Budget, the transition to a new government means managing new priorities and new policies, and adjusting to new ministers and their offices. The leadership roles that each of you exercise require you to balance the day to day needs of government with longer term policy and planning; in short, the reactive versus the strategic. In the early days of a new government you face both enormous day to day demands while also needing to start implementing new policy platforms.

And they were informed: "We are committed to building a modern, competitive Australia capable of meeting the challenges of the 21^st century – to secure the nation’s future as well as a future for working families. We are committed to building a strong foundation for future prosperity – through responsible economic management and by enhancing Australia’s international competitiveness and productivity."

That was immediately followed by: "The Government’s productivity agenda begins with a comprehensive long-term program of reforms to our education system, ranging from early childhood services through to schools and training, and right through to universities and research programs," and sometime later, "Just look at the policy challenges that Australia faces over the next decade and beyond... The challenge of implementing an education revolution extending from early childhood to schools, apprenticeships, universities and postgraduate research – to prepare a new generation with skills and competencies that employers will be looking for decades from now."

A number of other areas was of course the subject of Mr Rudd's assessment, but of immediate interest to TFW is just what are to be the tools that the Prime Minister intends to use to meet that challenges facing our educational and research sectors? We shall have to wait for the flurry of reviews to have been concluded to begin to get a reasonable understanding of the eventual reality.

But surely, the university and research sectors have a right to ask Mr Rudd and his Treasurer Wayne Swann, to what extent would beginning to appropriately resource universities and public research raise Australia's rate of inflation.

Perhaps those Senior Executives from the Treasury might undertake some modelling for the government.