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TREElectric Pty Ltd...._____
687(D) Brighton Road, SEACLIFF, SA, 5049.
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Ms Emery Lansdown,
Innovation Summit Secretariat,
Department of Industry, Science and Resources,
CANBERRA, ACT, 2600.
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Dear Ms Lansdown,
RE: Innovation Summit submission.
Thankyou for the telephone conversation that we had earlier today.
Although you said in our telephone conversation a few hours ago that my submission to the Innovation Summit did not include details that meet the Innovation Summit's guidelines because the details were "too specific about my company's circumstances and not broad enough for the Innovation Summit", I maintain that my submission does meet the guidelines and includes details that are definately broad enough and important enough to meet the objectives of the Innovation Summit.
The way I have been treated by the government shows that there are common and well-rehearsed tactics used by some public servants to mistreat innovators. I may be one of many innovators that have been treated this way (the only difference being that I have been more persistent than most in fighting for a fair and just remedy) and there is certainly a high risk that other innovators will receive similar treatment as me in the future.
To exclude my submission from being listed on the Innovation Summit's web page (where other submissions are listed) creates an imbalance in contributions where the innovators contribution is being under-represented. It is important that all contributors are appropriately represented covering a wide variety of issues, including issues that the government mightn't like, in order for the Innovation Summit to be a success. Failure to do this will result in the Summit being unable to achieve any practical and realistic outcomes. Identifying misconduct on the part of the public servants, as well as creating fair and reasonable measures for remedying mistakes made by the government, are essential outcomes seeing as the current measures are totally inadequate and makes innovation far too risky for innovators, particularly for small business innovators, to conduct innovation in Australia. The ability for the Innovation Summit to achieve relevant and practical outcomes will be enhanced if innovators, like all other contributors, are given adequate and appropriate opportunities to put forward their thoughts and concerns during the Innovation Summit forums and workshops. After all, without innovators, there can be no innovation no matter how many Innovation Summits are held.
My experience highlights how the intentions of the government to facilitate innovation end up doing the exact opposite when the innovator is:
- refused proper and fair consideration in the process of compiling and approving research and development proposals, and
- treated unfairly and without any genuine opportunity to seek remedies to any mistakes that the government makes.
My submission included details of my company's experience so that you could see that I am not presenting hypotheticals, but rather presenting actual, real-life events. While it might suit the government to ignore what I am saying (as it has for over three years now), I have made extremely important and significantly relevant points in my submission that need to be given appropriate consideration at the Innovation Summit. I have raised these issues in the hope that changes will be made in the way the government conducts itself thereby giving innovators the confidence needed to conduct innovation without the fear that they will lose their technologies, their livelihoods and their reputations.
I believe that the opportunity for innovators to contribute to the Innovation Summit is lacking by a long shot. An early example of this is how my submission is being excluded from the submissions listed on the Innovation Summit's web page. There needs to be more appropriate opportunities for innovators to contribute to the forums and workshops in the Innovation Summit. If the Innovation Summit proceeds without the appropriate recognition and contribution of innovators, then there is a risk that the Summit will be rendered a waste of time - it is simply "window-dressing" on the part of the government. Unfortunately, the government has already taken other highly respected activities (such as the former Australia Prize) and turned them into propaganda tools. The government needs to realise that it cannot mistreat people and at the same time expect people to trust what it does.
I hope that the Innovation Summit will recognise that there needs to be a greater ability for the innovator to contribute to the preparation and approval of research and development projects which, at the moment, hardly exists. The current arrangements results in the innovator getting unfairly pushed around at the whim of the government and larger corporations and in some cases, such as mine, being side-lined without any genuine opportunity to seek a fair and just remedy. Litigation is not a viable option for a small, start-up innovation company to seek a fair and just remedy because the extensive court costs makes justice too expensive to achieve - the courts can easily be used as a weapon by the government and large corporations to destroy the innovator. When public funds and the public office are misused in this way, resulting in a large corporation cashing in on the innovator's work and new technologies as in my case, there is little that the innovator can do to stop it. I hope that the Innovation Summit will recognise these problems and recommend changes to overcome these problems so that innovation in Australia can flourish.
If the government refuses to make the vital and necessary changes to overcome the poor treatment of innovators, then it is important for innovators to at least be warned of how their trust in the government could lead them to losing their technologies, their livelihoods and their reputations. I would have been grateful if someone had given me such a warning. For some public servants, there seems to be no limit to their dishonesty and unfairness (even fabricating stories and spreading malicious rumours about the innovator) to try and cover up their mistakes. The result is that large corporations, who prey on innovators for new technologies that they can not or will not develop themselves, receive both the credit for developing the technologies and the benefits from commercialising the technologies that they have no right to use. This can happen with the help of the public office and public funds no matter how much time and effort the innovator spends informing the public servants of the work he/she is doing (ie. by explaining contracts, work plans, performance reports, economic analysis, etc). The public servants can simply ignore all this knowledge and blindly approve proposals by a large corporation that are clearly inaccurate, misleading and possibly fraudulent. In my case, a government department's fraud investigators suggested that the way my company has been treated should be referred to the Federal Police for investigation (seeing as $1.3 million of public funds may have been fraudulently acquired), but the public servants who are handling this matter have not taken up this suggestion, or any other suggestions put forward by the department's fraud investigators.
In conclusion, I hope that my submission will be included in the list of submissions on the Innovation Summit web site seeing as to refuse to do so looks like a further attempt by the government to ignore me and hide it's mistakes. I plan to be at the Innovation Summit presenting the facts of my case to as many people as I can because I would not wish any person to suffer the same experience as I have. The poor conduct of some public servants is such a serious problem that I plan to hand out leaflets at the Innovation Summit explaining my situation and to seek opportunities in the various forums and workshops to expose and remedy the gross misconduct that some public servants are guilty of.
Yours sincerely,
NEIL AITCHISON.
Managing Director.
7th January, 2000.
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