Events News
Peter Beattie, former Premier of Queensland, Australia, Speaks
South Carolina needs to focus on building the
"infrastructure of the mind in order to create the jobs of tomorrow," the former Premier of the
Australian state of Queensland said during a speech and dialogue with students, faculty, and local
community members held March 4 at the Moore School of Business.
"Brain power and the encouragement of innovation are our future," said Peter D. Beattie, who is currently a Senior Scholar in Residence at the University of South Carolina.
Beattie, one of the most electorally successful politicians in Australia, was the 36th Premier of Queensland, elected four times and serving from June 1998 until he retired in September 2007. Queensland is South Carolina’s "Sister State" – a partnership that was launched during Beattie’s time in office.
The former premier was widely praised during his tenure for his vision to turn Queensland into Australia’s “Smart State” through a newly focused education system, a more highly skilled workforce, and more long-term jobs in industries such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technology.
"The most powerful job creator is the brain," Beattie said, noting that Queensland now has one of the highest economic growth rates and one of the lowest unemployment rates in Australia.
Beattie forged close ties with his alma mater, the University of Queensland, and other higher education institutions in his state while he was premier, and he suggested that the state of South Carolina needs to do the same. "Unless you start with education, no one will compete with the global changes that are taking place in this century," he said. "Investment in education generally, and in the sciences, in particular, must be the Number 1 priority."
The state needs to collaborate more widely with the University of South Carolina, Beattie suggested, particularly because of USC’s expertise in research and the sciences. In addition, USC should spend more money on research and "get business and government to do this, too," he said. "A patient government investment partnership with the university sector is critical."
Constructing a new building for the Moore School in the heart of Innovista in downtown Columbia -- which Dean Hildy Teegen said she is "very hopeful" will happen -- is "absolutely where it ought to be," said Beattie. This location would lead to collaboration among colleagues in the business school, the engineering school, and other USC schools and departments, he said, and could speed up the commercialization of business/scientific/engineering ideas. (Innovista is a collaboration of local, state, and federal governments, as well as the business and economic community, in a commitment to environmental and social responsibility.)
Discussing sustainability, Beattie said that Queensland scientists are working on perfecting a "clean-coal" technology that would help alleviate global warming caused by burning dirty coal. "If we’re really going to save the planet, we have to clean up coal," he said. He pointed to Australia’s neighbor, China, which likely won’t stop using coal to produce electricity because coal is both cheap and plentiful there.
With an affordable "clean-coal technology," however, China could still utilize coal but not contribute as much to the problem of global warming. As for China itself, Beattie believes that country "provides opportunities but also competition. The way to compete is brainpower – in partnership with universities."
Jan Collins
March 2008