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PUBLISHER’S LETTER
www.siliconchip.com.au
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Leo Simpson, B.Bus., FAICD
Production Manager
Greg Swain, B.Sc.(Hons.)
Technical Staff
John Clarke, B.E.(Elec.)
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Ross Tester
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Philip Watson, MIREE, VK2ZPW
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2 Silicon Chip
Knowledge nation is a
woolly headed wish list
Now that the Labor Party has released its report
on how to build the “Knowledge Nation” we’ll all
sleep more soundly in our beds, won’t we? As spelt
out on July 1st, the Opposition Leader, Mr Beasley,
has compiled a woolly-headed wish list of things
that might be good for us, without spelling out any
real detail of how they might be accomplished. He
and the Deputy Leader Simon Crean are real good
at announcing that they will have inquiries but they
don’t really seem to have any ideas or policies at all.
The fact that they are the only alternative to the lacklustre mob presently in power is not attractive at all.
Let’s face it: the record of successive Labor and Liberal governments on anything to do with technology has been woeful. If it wasn’t so serious, it would
be farcical. Witness the present Minister for Communications, Richard Alston’s
pronunciations on virtually anything to do with telecommunications, the ABC,
Pay TV, free-to-air TV and Digital TV, data-casting, Internet gambling or whatever and you have to wonder who is advising him. But the really sad part about
the nonsense he spouts for most of the time is that there is apparently no-one in
Parliament who can step up and say, “What a load of rubbish!”
As to Mr Beasley’s wish to double Australia’s research & development by 2010,
let’s hope he’s not proposing a return to the old 150% R&D grants. We’ve been
there and done that. Even if the Labor Party is genuine about it, you can depend
on the Australian Taxation Office and the “devil in the detail” of the resulting
law to rip back most of the benefits. Several years into the program, the ATO will
subsequently back assess companies and tell them “that they didn’t qualify after
all and they now need to pay huge back taxes”. It happened to Silicon Chip Publi
cations Pty Ltd and I dare say it happened to many other companies.
No, if any company wants to develop new products or services, it had better
do it without the expectation of Government assistance. That way, there will be
no need to meet arbitrary and stultifying bureaucratic guidelines and no need to
wait forever for assistance or grants that might or might not eventuate. It is far
better to get in and do it while the opportunity exists.
There are lots of Australian companies which are successfully developing
and producing products and services for local use and export. Let us wish them
Godspeed in their efforts. But let them do it without any government assistance
or interference.
If the Labour Party really wants to do something to help Australian industry do
better in IT and electronics manufacture, there’s no need to think about any form
of financial assistance. It can do it simply by getting rid of unnecessary legislation
and regulation. A particular example: get rid of the need for EMC (Electromagnetic
Compatibility) testing and C-tick registration for all electronic products sold in
this country. EMC regulations have not resulted in any apparent improvement
in most electronic products sold in this country and many of those with C-ticks
radiate more interference than ever.
Not only that, the present lack of enforcement of EMC standards is unfair to
those Australian companies which do everything by the book and produce products which fully comply.
Worse, the cost of EMC testing stops many small Australian companies from
ever developing products they can sell locally - they will never get to the stage
where they can export.
If the Liberal Party feel like improving their chances of winning the next election, they are free to take up the idea, as well. They might even get my vote. And
can we have a replacement for Richard Alston?
Leo Simpson
www.siliconchip.com.au
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