Mr Rudd Tells the Global Foundation a Thing or Two -- If Elected Will He Be Able to Make Good? (March 11, 2007)

    The leader of the federal Labor opposition, Kevin Rudd, addressed The Global Foundation in Melbourne this past Thursday. It was in essence a broadly drawn policy speech and might be thought to be a public utterance for the Labor Party membership to keep in mind come the party's National Conference toward the end of April.

Mr Rudd gave no indication of the detail that would underlie his plans; nevertheless he has put forward a bold assortment of proposals and will have to work hard to implement them should Labor win government.

Here are excerpts of what he told his listeners relating directly to support for education, research and development :

    [W]e have grown increasingly dependent on the Chinese boom for our prosperity. The surge in our terms of trade is adding an estimated 55 billion dollars to our economy this year alone. But if China’s growth slows, and if global commodities markets fall, we could be in for a bumpy ride.

 

That’s why I believe we must have a total focus on long-term policies that will prepare us for life beyond the mining boom. This is integral to maintaining our prosperity. And to do this, we need to reverse the decline in our productivity growth.

 

When Labor handed over stewardship of the economy to John Howard 11 years ago, our productivity was growing at an annual rate of 3.2 per cent. It has now fallen to 2.2 per cent in the most recent productivity cycle, and even lower since then.

 

It is not surprising that Australia’s productivity performance today ranks only 16th in the OECD.

 

[T]he way to improve our productivity is to invest in human capital, to implement an education revolution.

 

[W]e need new investment at all levels of education, training and skills – from early learning and pre-school, to schools, TAFEs, universities and research. We need to turbocharge the capacity of the next generation of Australians.

 

We must set for ourselves a goal for Australia to become the best educated country, the most skilled economy, the best trained workforce in the world.

 

We must strengthen investment in knowledge and creativity, provide incentives for business research and development, accelerate the take up of new technology, attract foreign R&D funds, and strengthen the links between universities and businesses.

 

We need to forge a new national consensus on climate change. I believe that we need to:

• ratify the Kyoto Protocol,

• cut Australia’s greenhouse pollution by 60 per cent by 2050,

• set up a national emissions trading regime,

• substantially increase our renewable energy target, and,

• ensure that Australia’s disaster mitigation plans reflect the impact of climate change.

I will soon convene a National Climate Change Summit to ensure all options are put on the table.