Opinion- 29 October 2007 |
Harry Robinson: Big Bad Piggybank |
What's a million here or
there? Or a billion? Does it matter where the money goes? It's been going
everywhere during this election campaign. Hospitals, roads, schools,
roundabouts, rain water tanks, roof top solar heaters, drought relief, land
for housing .. The list seems endless unless you think of tertiary
education, commercial research and development. These are the orphans of
electoral politics and the reason looks clear -- for every researcher there
are hundreds of hospital patients, for every magnetic lecturer there are
thousands of home buyers. Put the other way around, there are all too few
votes in science and higher education.
To deepen the gloom, we have had an anti-intellectual government for a
decade and more. Universities have been put on short rations. The 150% tax
rebate on r & d was sent to the sin bin. Infrastructure in ports could not
keep up with demand for coal and iron.
Opportunities were missed and Her Majesty's loyal Opposition was
ineffectual. The Labor Party was and still is a wimp in this area.
But we had "good economic management" or so Mr Howard and Mr Costello told
us. Treasurer Costello built up the biggest piggybanks in the nation's
history, so big that billions were put aside for a future fund, tax cuts
were promised although the promises were reflections from smoky mirrors.
What is the accounting phrase? "Cash at bank" -- isn't that the way they
describe idle money? We need some cash but in the billions it has all the
power of a mountain of marshmallow. As an economic manager, Mr Costello made
a fine book keeper. He taxed high, pushed debt down low, parked his
accumulated surpluses where they could do no harm and very little good.
A more dynamic government would have struck a point at which the national
debt was reasonable, say at $30 billion, and ploughed incoming tax into
profitable fields. We'd have had wealth production from railroads or
business innovations, or --- save us! -- universities. We would be a richer
nation today.
One outfit which has grown impatient with static economic management is the
Business Council of Australia, yes a peak body normally expected to back
governments of the coalition hue. Even the BCA wanted action as became clear
in the second week of the election orgy when their president, Mr Michael
Chaney, called for hefty investment in education (they want the most
productive staffers) and high pay for teachers. High pay for teachers? Was
the man mad?
Professor Alan Robson, chair of the Group of Eight, would not think so.
Almost to the day of Mr Chaney's heresy Prof Robson was putting out a media
release to state the pragmatic value of tertiary education. Essential in
today's world of competitive knowledge, He said and went on:
"A tertiary qualification has become the entry ticket to the knowledge
economy, and solutions to the
world's major problems are underpinned by scholarly analysis and
creativity," he said.
"However, the current policy architecture affecting Australia's
universities, designed many decades
ago, no longer suits contemporary circumstances. It will not serve Australia
well into the future.
"Australia's higher education system remains under-resourced and
over-regulated yet under-planned
and, hence, insufficiently differentiated to cater for changing needs.
"There are great opportunities to be seized by designing a new policy
framework that will unleash
Australia's intellectual potential in the global knowledge society.
Australia's future competitiveness
requires a wider vision of our possibilities and less constraint of our
capabilities."
All this is true but, with due respect to Professor Robson, the style is so
muddy as to guarantee glazed eyes in media offices, even in the upmarket
editorial offices of such journals as The Fin Review or the Melbourne Age.
The cause needs a new spin doctor.
That aside, the argument is right: money in piggybanks earns a pittance in
interest, money well directed to higher education, research and development,
innovations will pay solid profits. Why have we been ignoring the fact that
the brain bank pays many times more than the piggybank?
In the name of perspective, let's remember that universities are not only
for creating wealth. They are also for art, poetry, history, drama, music --
everything that enriches the human spirit.
Harry Robinson -- for 25 years worked in television journalism in Oz and the US and was for several years air media critic for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Sun-Herald.