Why are Ministers 'dropping' reports rewarded? An RD&I case study.

The 'drop' is a means of releasing government reports in such a way that journalists and community (or lobby) groups have the ability to consider the report to be able to comment on it at the time of release. You can tell there is a drop when the coverage refers to the report in the future tense (as in coverage on a Tuesday that reads 'The report to be released Tuesday.')

This week we saw the drop of the report of the Strategic Review of Research and Development, Ambitious Australia. InnovationAus, the Australian Academy of Science, Universities Australia and the Business Council of Australia (BCA) (to list only a few) dutifully reported the iminent release of the report. All referred to the report positively, mostly using the report's own language. 

The Academy of Science either missed something in editting their release, or they really do think the May Budget presents an opportunity to merely start halting the decline in RD spending.

The BCA used the opportunity to reference its own report submitted to the Strategic Review, which it asserts shows a $5 increase in economic activity for every $1 of government expenditure over thenext decade. Unfortunately, the actual report by Mandela includes no details on methodology. The online version states that this information is in a separate volume, but it does not appear in the BCA post. 

The Minister's media release meekly states 'The Government will carefully consider the report and its recommendations and how it might respond.' The nature of the drop means the commentary is based on only one information source - the report itself. 

One feature of the report didn't get mentioned in any of the commentary - its date. The cover of the report carries the date December 2025 under the title.

What has the Government been doing in the interim?

I can take a guess. The Government response is already drafted and has been considered by Cabinet. Easy reform tasks such as creating a new body to replace an old one will have budget implications. Reforms, if any, to tax incentives and university funding obviously have larger budget impacts.

Consequently, we can expect on budget night that one of the policy areas that will be supported by bespoke colour brochures and quotable quotes will be the suite of responses to the report. Whether they will be big enough to attract attention away from any budget nasties is another question. 

I am not getting my hopes up. The Government could notionally adopt every recommendation in this report, but judiciously sequence them. Move first on creating the National Innovation Council. Task it with identifying the goals for the National Innovation Pillars. Then task them to prioritise all the other recommendations which means that nothing would substantially change for two years or more.

While the new Council is working its way through this, some shiny new bauble (AI?) will suddenly dominate the innivation conversation, and the Government will feel that all too common challenge of being seen to do something. Whatever that something is will cut across the work the Council is doing. 

By about year three there will be frustration by Ministers that nothing has changed and some other review will be initiated - this time by PM&C. They will attempt to reprioritise the original program, and in doing so will quietly gut it of items that were going to cost a lot. This will be sold as a benefit based on an argument that the outcomes will be delivered at lower cost.

Why am I so certain? Because this has been the history of every review of innovation, R&D or the digital economy for the last two decades. 

Maybe what we need is innovation in the making and implementation of economic policy. Ultimately that might require giving the Federal Parliament a legislative power that can, in some way, constrain future Governments. Otherwise how do we ever implement a reform horizon longer than a parliamentary cycle? Note that four year rather than three year terms achieve nothing in this regard - has anyone evidence that the States having moved to fixed four year terms have been any better at dealing with long term strategy?

Depressing, isn't it? 

Maybe we should stop rewarding Ministers for drops. Adopt a cynical stance that the drop is in reality a smokescreen for inactivity. Of course, the risk is that your organisation gets cut-off from future drops. 

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Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans JWL