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Innovation fundamental to businesses, jobs, must be communicated: Greg Hunt

New industry, innovation and science minister Greg Hunt has said that the innovation message had to be made meaningful to everybody and not just focus on digital start-ups.

In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, Hunt said that innovation was critical for all businesses, including established ones.

Some have criticised prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s innovation rhetoric, which did not resonate well in some areas and was abandoned by the LNP in regional Queensland during the election campaign.

Hunt said innovation was important to all companies, whether they be miners or cafe operators or farmers.

“There will be a very strong focus on what this means for job opportunities and improved job conditions for people from all walks of life,” Hunt toldThe AFR.

“Innovation has to be the driver of 60 per cent of Australia’s productivity and that is fundamental to existing business.”

Meanwhile, Mark Dodson of the University of Queensland’s Technology and Innovation Management Centre suggests that the everyday benefits of innovation – longer lives, improved connectedness, freedom from boring and dangerous tasks – need to be communicated.

He wrote on The Conversation that better political leadership needed to be displayed on the issue, with less distraction towards start-ups.

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