Greg Sheridan the foreign editor in The Australian newspaper recently said, “The Australian electorate is like a fat middle-aged man becoming ill but determined not to visit the doctor because he knows the doctor will tell him to give up junk food.” This simile hit me as very harsh and yet so true. Why do we do often try to avoid the hard yards in order to achieve our goals?
Although Sheridan’s statement presupposes the twin truths of middle-aged men avoiding the doctor as well as the Australian electorate failing to realise the danger involved with spiralling debt, it characterises these issues as being caused by “junk food”. That is, the quick and easy solution to problems.
The same is true with research and development problems. If the answer to your problem (hypothesis) is quick and easy (fast), then more than likely there was no need for R&D. The solution may already be in the public domain or perhaps did not require a systematic experimental process to be discovered.
It is through the use of a scientific experimental approach that R&D exists. The asking of ourselves, “What is the problem?”, and “What do I need to discover to solve this problem?” The costs involved in doing that exercise should (subject to other legal requirements) be aggregated to become a tax credit under the R&D Tax Incentive.
If we could ask the same questions of the Australian economy and of the Australian people, what would that hypothesis look like and what would the experiments be? I suspect that Sheridan would proffer the following hypothesis, “If the Australian electorate is getting fat, lazy and further into debt by accepting fast, expensive answers to complex problems, then we need to experiment with the exercise of fiscal cost cutting to examine and ascertain the most effective route to achieving a healthy economy.”
This hypothesis is not scientific in the pure sense of the word and yet, would in my view and in many expert views, be worthwhile undertaking. In the meantime, being middle aged, I will aim to cut back on junk food, eat healthier and save a bit of dough!
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