A 1950s colonial mindset which said nothing good could come out of this country, and everything good would get invented in either the UK, or Germany or America.

A 1950s colonial mindset which said nothing good could come out of this country, and everything good would get invented in either the UK, or Germany or America. As an Australian who left the country owing to a perceived lack of R&D opportunities far later on, in 2001, and had never heard this sentiment articulated, I found this quote very interesting. It is a shame that, even to date, stories behind the many Australian inventions are not taught in Australian schools. We are responsible for so many interesting things: wifi, samba, rsync, Wikileaks, TCP half-open scanning, rubber hose cryptography, plastic money, wave-piercing multihulls, power boards, ultrasound, pacemakers, feature-length film, photolithography, refrigeration, permaculture, plain tobacco packaging, swim briefs, medical penicillin, bionic ears, electric drills, winged keels, plastic lenses, inflatable emergency rafts, New Zealand, etc. Perhaps the Australian government is to blame: having been outside for so long, looking in, it seems they (especially one of the two major parties) consistently de-fund, de-nature and over-regulate the educational and cultural sectors of society while failing to provide viable avenues for R&D to retain talent in the country. Their biggest 'program' seems to be reducing tax on large-scale R&D expenses ... perhaps not realising that the very nature of Australia's economy makes it a terrible place (~zero supply chain, very high costs, very small market, no VC, miles from anywhere, timezone unique in the English speaking world) to perform most R&D.