A national innovation strategy

One of my colleges at work is more politically left of centre than me; he is a union member and supports the left side of politics. Conversely, my political views are more right of centre; I more of a capitalist than a socialist but I believe in regulation as a balance of power is required.

I also believe in social safety nets such as government welfare to assist those less fortunate within reason; naturally this assistance is short term only to help people get back on their feet.

One area we did agree on was when the Abbott government came to power, he slashed budgets across all departments; this was required after the budget disaster he was bequeathed but the scientific budget needed to be expanded.

But the science and innovation portfolio was largely ignored in order to derive budget savings; to my way of thinking, this is short-term thinking that has long-term ramifications.

Some of their leading innovations and scientific discovery from the CSIRO include WiFi, plastic banknotes, the Hendra virus vaccine, extended wear contact lenses, Aerogard insect repellent, the total wellbeing diet, RAFT polymerisation, BARLEYmax, self twisting yarn and softly washing liquid.

The Abbott government pretty much slashed the CSIRO budget, that is the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation that employs scientists, engineers and research technicians - the whole reason why we need to better utilise PhDs.

We ran the real risk of losing top notch talent to overseas organisations where our leading scientific minds defected to international organisations - our country loses the benefits of their knowledge and work.

Since the Prime Ministerial coup, the first real change of policy is to inject $100 million back into the CSIRO with over twenty individual measures running across eleven ministerial portfolios.

The funding forms the ­national innovation and science agenda focusing on four key outcomes of commercialising research, raising capital and ­effective risk management, providing government leadership as model of innovative practices and boosting talent and skills across the economy - great stuff.

Notwithstanding, such research requires funding to attain commercial success and that requires venture capitalists investing scarce resources to projects that hold commercial capabilities.

The top international universities of the world such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Chicago Booth and Wharton University all generate significant interest and funding opportunities through venture capitalists.

The strategy supports science, mathematics and technology at schools across the country to provide the foundations of the program. Now we have the tools and government support to compete at the highest level to attract the best talent worldwide. While Abbott stated Australia is once again open for business, Turnbull is creating the environment to attract science and innovation back to Australia.

Furthermore, tax advantages will now drive investment in ventures that may have not received venture capital funding in the past, one hopes scarce capital is attracted to entrepreneurial business enterprises leading to jobs and investment. Naturally, some business ventures will fail with such risk allowing tax deductions of capital lost.

We have discussed at length the advantages and disadvantages of a Prime Minister with his real world commercial experience. Malcolm Turnbull is a business success, he has extensive merchant banking experience where he made his fortune in technology innovation. He is now reversing the regressive policy of his predecessor - I think we will both agree that this is a positive outcome.