The RDCs are dedicated research purchasers, managers, brokers and coordinators. Unlike policy departments, let alone inter-jurisdictional committees, their core business is procuring and managing research and communicating the outputs of that research. It is not surprising they do a better job as research planners, purchasers and managers.
This is even more likely to be the case for cross-sectoral issues like climate, water, energy, food and biosecurity, given their added complexity and the multitude of players. But since the abolition of Land & Water Australia, we no longer have a dedicated statutory body to perform these functions.
We need a national approach to complex rural issues
We need specialist expertise to scan, scope, prioritise, design, procure, manage and disseminate research programs on these big complex issues. This won’t be delivered effectively by part-timers, or people with short planning horizons whose day job is serving a particular industry, writing policy or responding to the minister’s office.
National collaboration and co-ordination is crucial. But if the default mechanism for national coordination is inter-jurisdictional committees, there is a big risk of defaulting to lowest common denominator consensus — tweaking the status quo while avoiding risk or genuine innovation.
In our Federation, the latter problem bedevils COAG and its subsidiary Ministerial Councils and Standing Committees. Consensus incrementalism pervades the national RD&E strategies to date.
When was the last time a bold reform or innovative new direction was conceived, driven and implemented quickly by a standing committee working to a ministerial council? On the rare occasions it happens, it is usually in response to crisis, or influenced by a dedicated, expert statutory authority to design and champion the reform and make it happen.
The government’s policy statement sensibly acknowledges that many issues cut across the 22 strategies identified to date. The Australian Research Committee will be asked to provide overall system oversight of rural research and development. This is a good start on a crucial task, but will it have the power or influence to redirect resources?
The policy statement on rural research sketches a road map, but lacks a vehicle. The Productivity Commission was right. A new dedicated statutory RDC (or a substantially reconfigured RIRDC), with a mandate beyond agriculture, is needed to bring national coordination, strategic direction and intelligent research investment and management to these big, complex, intersecting issues.
This would represent real reform, and a great investment.
The need for much better, “joined up” knowledge on how best to deal with climate, energy, water and food challenges won’t go away, not in our lifetimes or those of our kids.
Andrew Campbell is the director, Research Institute for Environment and Livelihoods, at Charles Darwin University.
This article first appeared at The Conversation.
