Australia21 has appointed two Honorary Advisers to the Board,
both of whom were participants in our recent Roundtable on Illicit Drugs
Policy. To the extent that their
timetables permit, they will participate fully in all of our Board and Research
Committee discussions.
They are:
Vivienne Moxham-Hall
Vivienne Moxham-Hall has
completed her degree in Science and Arts at Sydney University and is now completing
a Masters of Health Policy. She has taken on a variety of leadership positions
within the University such as University of Sydney Union Board Director from
2010-2012, SRC councillor from 2011-2012 and Under-graduate Science Student
Representative. She is a volunteer with Surf Lifesaving Australia and is
passionate about giving a youth voice to the policy directives of the future.
Tom Merrett
Tom Merrett is currently a
second year student at the University of Adelaide, studying a double degree of
Chemical Engineering with Finance on a BHP Billiton scholarship. He is a
representative on CHEMS, a student engineering society. In 2010 Tom was school
captain at Unley High School. He was also a youth participant in Australia 21’s
next big question project (see his contribution, made in his final school year,
here). His interests include multimedia with an emphasis on
video production and politics.
Vivienne and Tom are already
contributing fresh perspectives to our organisation, and Tom is putting in a
massive effort on a voluntary basis to the redesign of our website (watch this
space).
Australia21 is delighted to announce the appointment of our
new Executive Officer, Lyn Stephens, who joined us in January following Rachel
Oliphant’s acceptance of a position in the Australian Pubic Service.
Lyn’s experience ranges across psychiatric social work,
human resource management and public sector management, all of which fit her
well for the multifaceted demands of the part time Australia21 role.
She is currently an organizational development consultant
with a particular interest in dialogue and community consultation.
She retains a visiting fellowship at the College of Law at
the Australian National University, which was initiated while she was Director
of the Centre for Dialogue Project at the ANU.
On Tuesday 31 January 2012 Australia21 convened a roundtable
hosted by Sydney University to consider the following question:
What are the likely costs and benefits of a change in Australia’s current
policy on illicit drugs?
The decision to convene this roundtable was prompted by the June
2011 release of the Report of the Global Commission on Drug
Policy (downloadable from here), which
definitively concluded that the 40 years old global war on drugs has failed and
recommended, inter alia, that
governments be encouraged to experiment with models of legal regulation of
drugs to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and
security of their citizens.
Prior to the roundtable Australia21 commissioned a
discussion paper by Mr David McDonald, a social research consultant at the
Australian National University who specialises in issues at the boundary where
public health issues and the criminal law intersect. Mr McDonald’s paper canvassed the issues
raised by the Global Commission Report and set them in an Australian context,
addressing issues such as the extent and nature of drug availability and use in
Australia, the principal sources of drug related harm in Australia, and the
core challenges Australia faces to day in relation to drug policy.
We were fortunate to be able to bring together an
extraordinarily high level and diversified group from across the political
spectrum to consider this important and sensitive topic. In alphabetical order the participants were:
Mr Paul Barratt AO
Chair Australia21 and former
Secretary, Department of Defence and Department of Primary Industries and
Energy
Hon Dr Peter Baume AC
Former Chancellor Australian
National University; Federal Senator and Health Minister in the Coalition
Government led by Malcolm Fraser
Mr Chris Berg
Research Fellow, Institute of
Public Affairs, and newspaper columnist
Mr Bill Bush
Retired International Lawyer and
Member of Families and Friends for Drug Reform
Hon Bob Carr AC
Former Premier of NSW
Hon Kate Carnell AO
Former Chief Minister of the
Australian Capital Territory
Professor Nicholas Cowdery AM, QC
Former Director of Public
Prosecutions, NSW
Professor Bob Douglas AO (Chair)
Former Director, National Centre
for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University;
Director Australia21
Hon Professor Geoff Gallop AC
Former Premier of Western
Australia
Professor Margaret Hamilton AO
Formerly Founding Director of
Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Center Victoria, Current Drug Policy Advisor
Mr Brian McConnell
President, Families and Friends
for Drug Reform
Ms Marion McConnell
Parent of a son who lost his life
to a heroin overdose
Mr David McDonald
Social Research Consultant
Mr Tom Merrett
Second Year University Student,
University of Adelaide
Hon Professor Michael Moore
Executive Officer, Public Health
Association of Australia and former ACT Health Minister
Ms Vivienne Moxham-Hall
Arts and Science Graduate and
Student Representative Councillor, University of Sydney
Mr Mick Palmer, AO, APM
Former Commissioner, Australian
Federal Police
Professor Alison Ritter
Director Drug Policy Modeling
Program
University of New South Wales
Professor Robin Room
Drug policy researcher and
current Director, Turning Point, Victoria
Ms Lyn Stephens
Executive Officer, Australia21
Mr Nick Stump
Former mining industry executive,
Director Australia21, Chair Construction Industry Advisory Board on Drugs in
the Workplace
Dr Alex Wodak AM
President Australian Drug Law
Reform Foundation and Former President, International Harm Reduction
Association
Hon Dr Michael Wooldridge
Former Federal Minister for
Health in the Coalition Government led by John Howard
The report of the roundtable is now at the printers, and it
will be launched by roundtable participant Nicholas Cowdery QC, former NSW
Director of Public Prosecutions, in a Committee Room in Parliament House,
Canberra, at 10.00 am for 10.30 am on Tuesday 3 April.
Other roundtable participants at the launch will be Paul
Barratt, Chris Berg, Bob Douglas, Brian and Marion McConnell, David McDonald,
Mick Palmer and Alex Wodak.
Australia21 expresses its appreciation to ACT Senator Garry
Humphries for sponsoring the launch event at Parliament House, to the
University of Sydney for providing us with the venue for the roundtable, and to
the donors who generously assisted us financially with this project.
Media release issued today 6 April 2011 by Professor Richard Hames, President, Australia21.
Australia has a choice – to see climate change as a threat to its industrial base, or to see the value eco-innovation offers - in financial gain, joint ventures, skills development, employment, and research & innovation opportunities.
There are huge openings for Australia to participate in the trillions of dollars being spent in China, the US and India on green technologies over the next few decades.
‘But there still is much work to be done in Australia to support an innovation and entrepreneurial culture capable of taking advantage of these technology opportunities’, says Professor Richard Hames, President, Australia21.
Australia is yet to develop a national approach that would see it become a global leader in resource and energy innovation.
Prof Hames noted that, ‘a major challenge for Australia is the lack of coherence between and within government departments and industry – which impedes the development of the cross-disciplinary approaches required to develop a national eco-innovation strategy’.
Yet, effective strategies for eco-innovation need to include a diversity of portfolios including: environment, science & technology, industry, transport, competition, and energy. Successful policies also require a mix of diverse tools and initiatives, from support for research and development (R&D), to market creation and export promotion.
A new OECD report, Better Policies to Support Eco-Innovation, 2011 has found that: making mature technologies more market-friendly is as important as producing new knowledge; technical and non-technical innovations matter equally; and capturing innovations originating in non-environmental domains opens a large spectrum.
Currently there are few business or deployment models that allow us to take innovations no longer protectable by patents to build entrepreneurial, equity financed ventures to bring green technologies to market. Professor Hames says that ‘what we need is to innovate our business and social structures to bring solutions already here into use’.
One such model is the Global Innovation Commons (GIC) which promises to spur a strong new wave of technological innovation through the sharing of new ideas rather than through exclusive, private control of them.
Professor Hames confirmed that Dr David Martin, founder of the GIC, and a speaker at an upcoming Australia21 conference, will make the point that patents often serve to impede innovative technologies and make them unaffordable—at precisely the time when all countries need to adopt cutting-edge energy technologies to reduce carbon emissions.
An Australia21 conference will explore all these issues and discuss solutions on 14 April 2011 at The Australian National University.
More Information contact:
Prof Richard Hames, President, Australia21, m) 0419 851 523
Dr Lynne Reeder, Executive Director, Australia21, m) 0431 608958
This post written by Richard Eckersley, posted by Paul Barratt
Putting expired patents to work in novel ways – Australia to lead on new innovation models
Ross Garnaut, head of the Garnaut Climate Change Review, recently noted that successful Australian innovation effort will encourage the effective and early use of technologies developed in other countries, as well as the discovery and application in Australia of globally new technologies.
But beyond new technologies, a wider “innovation literacy” view, including use of existing or expired patents, provides for a more comprehensive picture of the drivers of the rate and direction of innovation, and of the impediments that can prevent successful innovation.
Such an approach has been developed by David E. Martin, an intellectual property activist based in the US, who works with many developing countries. David argues that a great many green technologies are already in the public domain and are ready to be developed. They just need to be identified and put to use.
Dr Martin is founder of the Global Innovation Commons (GIC) - a massive interactive archive of energy-saving technologies whose patents have expired, been abandoned, or simply have no protection.
The GIC encourages entrepreneurs and national governments to query the database on a country-by-country basis to identify helpful technologies that are in the public domain. Once identified, these technologies for energy, water, and agriculture are prime candidates for being developed at lower costs than patented technologies.
The World Bank is a partner on this project, along with the International Finance Corporation's infoDev unit. The World Bank has estimated that the technologies in the GIC database could save more than $2 trillion in potential license fees.
The Global Innovation Commons essentially seeks to bring the advantages of the open-source software development model — open participation, faster innovation, greater reliability, cheaper costs — to technologies that are claimed to be patented.
In the Global Innovation Commons, hundreds of thousands of innovations have been assembled, which are either expired, no longer maintained (meaning that the fees to keep the patents in force have lapsed), disallowed, or unprotected in most, if not all, relevant markets.
This means that, as of right now, steps can be taken into a world full of possibilities, not road blocks. Whether it’s clean water for China or Sudan, or carbon-free energy — it’s likely to be in the GIC.
Martin argues that patents often serve to impede innovative technologies and make them unaffordable — at precisely the time when all countries of the world, rich and poor, need to adopt cutting-edge energy technologies to cut carbon emissions.
In touting "open innovation," Martin takes the tradition of free software and digital commons to exciting new frontiers. The Global Innovation Commons promises to spur a strong new wave of technological innovation through the sharing of new ideas rather than through exclusive, private control of them. As Martin puts it, "What we do is trawl documents for their true meaning. But what we care about are basic human issues. In this case, it's to show what belongs to the big guys and what belongs to society."
Which brings us to the real challenge and opportunity offered by climate change – that of the chance for Australia to evolve as a global leader in resource and energy innovation that benefits the whole society and not just a few large corporations. New energy technologies will play a substantial role in both the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.
The urgency of the adjustment task shouldn’t be underestimated, and the change in incentives derived from carbon pricing can justify a large transitional increase in public support for innovation related to low-emissions technologies.
Fresh thinking, new business models, wiser leadership and continuous strategic innovation, are needed if Australia isto design and enact a low-carbon, steady state economy. The end point is not to undo industry but, on the contrary, to reinvent it as a viable force for sustainable living that comprises efficient practices and zero waste.
Clean-tech industries are a target for development under China’s next five year plan, and provide a major opportunity for Australia to leverage its expertise in green technology. China’s green energy market is estimated by investment funds such as Peony Capital, to be around $1 trillion.
Creating and developing global alliances in low-tech will not only assist Australia in improving its innovation performance; it will position Australia to reduce emissions for the larger polluters, such as China and India.
The implications for Australia of this new approach to innovation are clear:
- In every key environmental technology sector more patents are abandoned andexpire into the public domain than from all currently enforced commercial platforms. The solutions foreverything from distributedpower, to fuel cells, to intelligentbatteries, to wind, solar, waterenergy and purification, hydrogenfuel, and much more are availablein the Open Source commons
- Most of what we call invention and innovation is nothing of the kind. Most of it is incremental and serves only our current addiction to unsustainable growth
- The majority of innovations today arise not from individual genius, but from networks. It is the fusion of contributors to these networks, linked to markets, which is the core of enterprise creation
- Networked, open-source, innovation provides broad social and cultural benefits rather than just short-term unsustainable growth at any cost
- Australia is well-placed to review government policies in order to liberate and recycle innovation. In doing so it could lead the world in developing a new innovation literacy - applying it directly to reconstruction following natural disasters.
David Martin, a partner in The Constellation, is speaking at an Australia21 national conference Innovation – DrivingResilient Energy and Economic Futures on Thursday 14 April 2011 at The Australian National University.
Hear an introductory video of Dr David Martin speaking about the Global Innovation Commons here.
Find further details and register for the Australia21 Conference Innovation – Driving Resilient Energy and Economic Futures, Australian National University, Thursday 14 April 2011, here.
Dr David Martin, Founder, Global Innovation Commons, USA will be presenting in person, along with John Hewson, Richard Hames, David Miles, Andrew Lawson, Will Steffen, Anna Skarbek, John White, Anthony Bergin, Tony Coleman, and others who will focus on the prosperity opportunities that climate change can bring to Australia.
Innovation – Driving Resilient Energy and EconomicFutures a one-day conference will take place Thursday 14 April 2011 at ANU.Further details here.
Following is the text of a media release issued by Australia 21 on Saturday 12 March.
Billions of dollars at risk by not having a resilience framework
The recent Queensland floods and the terrible Japanese earthquake illustrate how major environmental disturbances can throw lives, infrastructure, and governments into chaos. How they recover is a sign of their resilience.
‘One thing we know’, says Prof Richard Hames, the newly appointed President of Australia21, ‘is that the future will surprise us. We don’t know how, or where or when.’
Pressure is mounting from the impacts of environmental and community upheaval from environmental turbulence. ‘We don’t have to wait doing nothing until the next disaster strikes that would be foolish’.
‘A resilience framework will allow for a more considered approach to dealing with these issues,’ Prof Hames stressed.
There is an urgent need at federal, state, and local levels for a resilience policy framework to target investment for both human capital and infrastructure so as to optimise the recovery of communities and local economies.
There is a serious danger of undermining resilience by going back to the way we were and not proactively addressing resilience issues.
Prof Hames said we must ask the question how the Senate can pass the flood levy without a resilience framework.
Consideration of resilience and complex systems dynamics will increase our opportunities of finding durable solutions to natural disasters.
Building a more resilient nation will require developing resilience tools, such as strength and speed of feedback mechanisms, diversity of ideas and resources, and a strong capacity for self-organising.
Australia21 is hosting a national conference examining energy and economic futures through a resilience and innovation lens. The conference discussion will help shape the way we as a nation prepare for a climate change future.
