Now that the Labor Party has released its report on how to build the "Knowledge Nation" we’ll all sleep more soundly in our beds, won’t we? As spelt out on July 1st, the Opposition Leader, Mr Beasley, has compiled a woolly-headed wish list of things that might be good for us, without spelling out any real detail of how they might be accomplished. He and the Deputy Leader Simon Crean are real good at announcing that they will have inquiries but they don’t really seem to have any ideas or policies at all. The fact that they are the only alternative to the lacklustre mob presently in power is not attractive at all.

Let’s face it: the record of successive Labor and Liberal governments on anything to do with technology has been woeful. If it wasn’t so serious, it would be farcical. Witness the present Minister for Communications, Richard Alston’s pronunciations on virtually anything to do with telecommunications, the ABC, Pay TV, free-to-air TV and Digital TV, data-casting, Internet gambling or whatever and you have to wonder who is advising him. But the really sad part about the nonsense he spouts for most of the time is that there is apparently no-one in Parliament who can step up and say, "What a load of rubbish!"

As to Mr Beasley’s wish to double Australia’s research & development by 2010, let’s hope he’s not proposing a return to the old 150% R&D grants. We’ve been there and done that. Even if the Labor Party is genuine about it, you can depend on the Australian Taxation Office and the "devil in the detail" of the resulting law to rip back most of the benefits. Several years into the program, the ATO will subsequently back assess companies and tell them "that they didn’t qualify after all and they now need to pay huge back taxes". It happened to Silicon Chip Publications Pty Ltd and I dare say it happened to many other companies.

No, if any company wants to develop new products or services, it had better do it without the expectation of Government assistance. That way, there will be no need to meet arbitrary and stultifying bureaucratic guidelines and no need to wait forever for assistance or grants that might or might not eventuate. It is far better to get in and do it while the opportunity exists.

There are lots of Australian companies which are successfully developing and producing products and services for local use and export. Let us wish them Godspeed in their efforts. But let them do it without any government assistance or interference.

If the Labour Party really wants to do something to help Australian industry do better in IT and electronics manufacture, there’s no need to think about any form of financial assistance. It can do it simply by getting rid of unnecessary legislation and regulation. A particular example: get rid of the need for EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility) testing and C-tick registration for all electronic products sold in this country. EMC regulations have not resulted in any apparent improvement in most electronic products sold in this country and many of those with C-ticks radiate more interference than ever.

Not only that, the present lack of enforcement of EMC standards is unfair to those Australian companies which do everything by the book and produce products which fully comply.

Worse, the cost of EMC testing stops many small Australian companies from ever developing products they can sell locally - they will never get to the stage where they can export.

If the Liberal Party feel like improving their chances of winning the next election, they are free to take up the idea, as well. They might even get my vote. And can we have a replacement for Richard Alston?