KEY POINTS:
Helen Clark yesterday pledged at least $700 million "innovation" money for the pastoral and food sectors.
The New Zealand Fast Forward fund - revealed in yesterday's Herald and later announced by major industry and Government figures - is part of the plan to transform the economy into a
"high value" supplier of goods and services around the world.
"We need to lift our levels of innovation on the farm, in the factory and in the laboratory, to keep ahead of the rest of the world and ensure that our pastoral and food industries are part of the new economy for New Zealand in the future," Prime Minister Helen Clark said.
Private industry was expected to match the Government's contribution to the fund.
With interest, it could grow to about $2 billion over the next 10 to 15 years.
Details of what the money will be spent on were still to be determined, but it has been welcomed by organisations including Science New Zealand, Export New Zealand and the Council of Trade Unions.
"This is an excellent model for commercialising research, based on research-industry collaboration," said Business NZ chief executive Phil O'Reilly.
But Dr David Skilling, chief executive of the New Zealand Institute, said the spend on research and development would still lag behind other "small" countries despite the major announcement.
He said Finland and Singapore spent about 3 per cent of gross domestic profit on research and development, compared with New Zealand's figure of about 1.2 per cent.
Dr Skilling said the $700 million - about 0.5 per cent of GDP - should be seen as a step in the right direction, rather than an end to the issue.
Victoria University Professor Jeff Tallon - one of the 460 scientists and academics who last week wrote an open letter warning of a "slow burning catastrophe" over the lack of science research funds - told the Herald the focus was too narrow.
He said the country was already too reliant on agriculture, and he believed there were "serious doubts" over the pastoral and food sector's ability to generate the wealth needed to catch up with other nations.
"To just push one sector seems to me to be a big, bad mistake," he said.
The solution must include growth in innovative manufacturing, an area that produced high-tech darlings Navman and Tait Electronics.
