Economic Evolution
This week I invite Rotarians to consider how the Australian economy has changed mainly in our lifetime.
Australia’s economic development is interesting because we have always been blessed with natural resource.
Our economy was built initially “on the sheep’s back” and traditional agricultural products before other natural resources attracted the people of the world to our shores due the attraction of gold and other minerals.
In the 1950’s a balance of agriculture and mining was the basis on which our economy was built to see us become sixth largest trading nation in the world. We witnessed the emergence of manufacturing industry and the growth of the tertiary sector which has provided employment for so many. At one stage one in every four people were employed indirectly by the car industry.
And so today we enter the Knowledge Economy era which has the potential for us to maintain our status one of the highest standards of living in the developed world. We have to take this next step to be competitive as there are so many emerging economies throughout the world whose economic success is also seeing similar growth and rising living standards.
We must develop our manufacturing and service industries to maintain our standards and will have to do so by embracing the “The Knowledge Economy”. A Knowledge Economy is one on which the production of goods and services is based primarily on knowledge-intensive activities. This involves the collection, analysis, and synthesis of information by those qualified to manage the process.
The success will require all in our industries to continually learn and increase their skill levels and expertise which will lead to further innovation.
Every industry, every profession must become knowledge based and improve our productivity across all sectors.
Following todays talk at Rotary I can see it is already all around us e.g your mobile phone, computer or your ability to embrace the zoom era all of which are new skills.
Necessity is the mother of invention. It is exciting, isn’t it?