Australia can’t fix productivity without confronting its innovation hesitation. As the nation launches another national conversation on productivity at Jim Chalmers’ roundtable this week, one can’t help but notice what’s missing. The usual policy levers – tax reform, regulation, infrastructure – are all there. But innovation, long the lifeblood of productivity, is treated as a hopeful byproduct of policy rather than a foundation that needs fostering.

This is evident in the Productivity Commission’s 21-page white paper, Growth Mindset: How to boost Australia’s productivity, which outlines the five proposed productivity inquiries. Terms such as innovation, innovator, innovative are mentioned just six times.

Innovation is treated as a hopeful byproduct of policy rather than a foundation that needs fostering.Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

In the subsequent interim report on Creating a more dynamic and resilient economy, innovation is positioned as an obvious, almost expected, consequence of the structural reforms, without reference to the necessary educational and cultural reform needed to harness the confidence and mindset to innovate.

We can’t regulate our way to innovation. Policies enable it, but the Australian people will ultimately be the innovators. Until we prioritise how Australians think about and experience innovation in daily........

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