http://au.news.yahoo.com/latest/a/-/latest/17533707/australian-business-climate-...

The head of the powerful United States Business Council says Australia's business climate is in "rigour mortis" and must stop being complacent.

Andrew Liveris, who is also the head of the US giant Dow Chemicals, says Australia has lost the ability to innovate.

He was speaking on the ABC's Inside Business program with the head of the Business Council of Australia, Tony Shepherd.

Mr Liveris, who was born in Darwin, urged Australian business to compete with both "brains and brawn".

"My observation is Australia is actually in rigour mortis. It's lost its ability to actually innovate and actually develop the things that the United States has," he said.

"I'm inviting Tony [Shepherd] to come and visit us in the United States and there the business community is forcing the Government to come to the table to be partners in designing the new age workforce.

"Australia, my wonderful home country, the lucky country, the well-written about happiest country in the world, of course has complacency as its greatest enemy."

But he said the nation must now "work hard to innovate to compete".

He urged Australia to create "innovation hubs" to attract venture capital.

"We've already started with three of them [in the US] and they're all on technologies America's good at," he said.

"I dare say if Australia does the same thing in short order you can get a venture capital market around those innovation hubs in a heartbeat."

Mr Shepherd agreed that Australia had become too complacent and was suffering a "national malaise".

"I do believe that in Australia in fund management and in investment, we've lost the entrepreneurial spirit, we've become a very complacent country," Mr Shepherd said.

"We were innovators and risk takers 30 or 40 years ago and we're not now and we've got to get that spirit going again.Â

"This is why we find it really encouraging to be working with the US Business Council to see if we can translate some of those lessons back to Australia.

"I think at the moment [Australian business leaders] are starting to say ... we need to get this going again ... we need to get this stuff moving."

Energy policy criticised

The two business leaders were also highly critical of Australia's energy policy.

Mr Liveris agreed Australia has an energy oligopoly.

"For every resource we dig up and export, farm, hotel, quarry, that's the vision of Australia I've known for 30 years," he said.

"The energy oligopoly and the fact we don't have domestic energy competitiveness is a shame for this country.

"We should have a domestic gas sector, we should have a domestic energy sector, we have a population that buys power at world prices yet we have domestic gas reserves, I don't understand that."

Mr Shepherd agreed, saying: "One of the biggest problems on energy supply at the moment particularly in gas is supply."

"Why do we put restrictions on supply?  We have more than enough domestic reserves of gas. Governments should be getting behind the development of these gas reserves," he said.

"We have a supply problem. That's what we have yet we're sitting on massive reserves."

He said Australia needs to start "playing to its strengths".

"What are the areas in Australia in a technological sense which would be good for us to invest in, where should we encourage research and development grants, where should we encourage greater cooperation between research institutes and businesses, where should we have the focus of attention," he said.

"We can't cover the whole spectrum of technology in the world but there are some logical areas where Australia should focus it's efforts if it wants to take advantage of the technology that is becoming available and will be available in the future."

Ford closure 'the canary in the mine'

Mr Shepherd said shows the need for the need for competitiveness and innovation.

"Obviously that's extremely disappointing but it is the canary in the mine isn't it," he said

"It tells you that unless we do something we will not have an industrial base in Australia, we really do have to take proactive steps to encourage Australian business to become far more competitive and far more productive and to become part of global supply chains not relying purely on the domestic economy."

Mr Liveris said he did not believe the Australian Government should prop-up the car industry.

"Prop-up is a terrible word.  I'm against prop, I'm against subsidy," he said.

"I think incentive is a wonderful human trait, carrot and stick right, so of course you punish the unprofitable.Â

"They should shut down, they should restructure, but how do you design the profitable? What am I good at? What are my skills?Â

"Australia has great discovery engines.  The pharmaceuticals Australia discovers, the vaccines, go to the world.  There's an example of a successful industry."

That story has nothing to do with Labor if anything its more about the dangers the Liberals present.

Dnarever wrote on Jun 9^th, 2013 at 12:38pm:

Yeh that's because as all idiots know, rigor mortis arrives before death

Quote:


Complacency is the key word here

I am not lamenting the lost of 2007

But if you look at the 2007 election - it represents Australian complacency at it's most jaundice

The economy was going great guns and we took it for granted that Labor couldn't possibly stuff it up

So we decide to elect another government - based on what?

Workchoices? - Fairwork is failing
National Apology? - how did this help 22 million people?
Kyoto? - now we have carbon tax
Iraq? - we are still in Iraq
Unemployment was under 4%

Abbotts recession with skyrocketing unemployment, interest rates and inflation should fix everyones problems