Innovation - what is that?

I have been thinking about innovation for a while now - probably for much of my life.

But it seems that few others are. I constantly see and hear political leaders who should know better talking about how this or that industry is dying and causing unemployment and bad times all around.

The mainstream media and the state governments are the worst offenders with one state in particular - South Australia - seeming to have no ability to adjust and re-invent itself.

Because that is what the nation needs - vigorous and constant re-invention. But clearly that isn't going to happen without some quality leadership and smart people who are prepared to understand the options and take some risks.

Focussing on South Australia for a moment - it's not like the place is naturally endowed with high quality resources - it has had some real leaders in the past who took risks and did some good things for the state.

Tom Playford recognised that he needed to build an industrial base to employ the growing population when he acquired steel and vehicle manufacturing industries for South Australia.

Don Dunstan worked hard to build a high value arts culture and that has paid real dividends for the state - both in terms of local jobs and international recognition and reputation.

But who since has had any vision or foresight or ability to recognise the challenges and do anything significant about them?

Dean Brown wanted to make the place the silicon village of the southern hemisphere and ended up destroying around 300 small businesses and god knows how many jobs - while handing $billions to a US multinational. It's not like he wasn't warned.

I'm not sure what John Olsen was trying to do but he ended up being forced out of the parliament on the back of dodgy dealings with another American multinational. And now he works for the current Labor government.

Mike Rann has been spruiking the *mining boom* as the saviour of the place. But even he knows that mining employs around 1% of the working population. I wonder what he has in mind for the remaining 99%?

Oh I forgot *defence*. Another industry that requires lots of capital and employs many people in California and elsewhere but bugger all in South Australia.

As an aside, today we discovered that the Howard government was far from the "world's best economic manager" - and gave away the farm because Peter's Costello and Dutton were acting like *dummies*.

So to my serious question - "Is anyone in or close to power actually thinking about what needs to be done to maintain a high standard of living for the current population - going into the second decade of the 21st century"?

And if they are could they please share that with the people - and demonstrate that they have the brains and ideas needed to make the place competitive as we head into 2010.

Basically people you have three choices - "Lead", "Follow" or "get out of the way".