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New Plan To Keep Victoria At The Forefront of Innovation
From the Premier.
Tuesday, 12 October 2010.
The Brumby Government will invest $1.5 million through the General Sir John Monash Foundation to help some of Victoria’s best and brightest post-graduate scholars continue their education at prestigious international institutions to ensure Victoria keeps up to date with the latest technological developments abroad.
While speaking at the Australian Israel Chamber of Commerce conference today Premier John Brumby also released Victoria: The Innovation State – a plan to establish a new Victorian Centre of Economic Design and fund new action plans to boost Victoria’s ICT, design and biotechnology industries and cut red tape.
“We are keeping our economy heading in the right direction and creating more jobs than any other state,” Mr Brumby said.
“Now is the time to invest to make sure Victoria takes advantage of our relative economic strength and capitalises on the world-wide recovery from the Global Financial Crisis.
“Victoria doesn’t rely on abundant natural resources for our prosperity – we must continually invest in the skills and ideas of the Victorian people for our long term economic successes.”
“When elected we embarked on a radical push to promote innovation in everything we do in Victoria and that has paid off with our productivity growth leading the nation.
He said Victoria’s productivity growth at 1.6 per cent over the past ten years was the best in Australia and showed Victoria’s ability to embrace new technology to become an innovative economic powerhouse.
Mr Brumby said the Victorian Government had cut payroll taxes to their lowest levels in 35 years in the recent budget to help Victorian businesses through the economic aftershocks of the Global Financial Crisis but more needed to be done to capitalise on the next phase of Victoria’s economic prosperity.
“We have cut taxes, cut red tape, invested record amounts in job-creating infrastructure but we know we need to do more to keep Victoria’s reputation as the economic engine-room of the nation,” Mr Brumby said.
“The OECD has described Victoria as one of the strongest and most resilient economies in the world but we know we can do even better.
“That’s why we are investing strongly in the growth areas of the future.
“Victoria is about to enter its next phase of economic prosperity based on new technologies and the renowned skills of the Victorian people.”
Mr Brumby said further details of the specific action plans will be available in the coming weeks.
A copy of Victoria: The Innovation State is available here Victoria: The Innovation State 2.01 Mb
