On May 15, I will chair my third and final American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) annual general meeting. It was hard to step into the shoes of the man who handed me my Federation Fellowship, former federal minister Dr Brendan Nelson, but harder still to navigate the chamber through such rapidly changing times.
I am the first AmCham chair who does not represent a US company, which has helped us bring AmCham into balance, bringing in more Australian startups and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) into the fold, and boosting its focus on commercial innovation.
Bringing the board into balance, doubling the number of Australian companies represented and tripling our gender diversity gave us the diverse perspectives that innovation needs to thrive.
As a result, we have almost doubled the value that AmCham creates, growing by about 50 per cent as a result. Most importantly, it is crystal clear today that AmCham in Australia creates value equally for our partners on both sides of the Pacific.
This fundamental value of equality and balance makes the alliance unbreakable.
Balance is hard to find as President Trump struggles to balance a US$1.9 trillion trade deficit by inflicting an unbalanced playing field through tariffs that really don’t feel much like diversity, innovation, or the “land of the free” and the “home of the brave”.
As an early US tech entrepreneur, I met a few US presidents starting with Bill Clinton. However, in 2016 I was compared to one just before the US election when Nobel prize winning climate scientists said the idea of me trying to run CSIRO was as preposterous as Donald Trump thinking he could ever become president!
I’ll admit, if you’re going to be compared to a US president, I’d prefer Jefferson the innovator. But CSIRO did become the first Australian organisation to break into the Thompson Reuters Global top 20 Innovators, beating NASA and finally reaching profitability after only 100 years – two facts which might amuse the President.
Maybe President Trump is just being an entrepreneur?
Entrepreneurs succeed by trying different things, including ideas that fail. Ultimately, we succeed by tacking, changing course, and sometimes gybing backwards.
Australia doesn’t like backflips; it always attracts massive media criticism. Perhaps it’s because the kangaroo and emu can’t even walk backwards. However, entrepreneurs do it often; that’s how they win.
The Australia-US alliance is stronger than a single moment in time or a single individual. Right now, we’re in a crisis of disruption, but entrepreneurs know that every disruption hides an opportunity – that opportunity is based on the bedrock of our shared history.
Australians have fought shoulder to shoulder alongside Americans in every conflict of the past 100 years because we cherish democracy. To fund our longstanding support of America, Australia invests 2 per cent of our GDP on defence, and the US is the largest beneficiary, including Australia’s recent US$3 billion (AU$4.6 billion) commitment to AUKUS.
America is the largest recipient of Australia’s foreign investment and has enjoyed a massive trade surplus with Australia for over 70 years, with all US products entering Australia tariff-free; something we absolutely should not change because free trade is a key to innovation.
But it isn’t just about Australian dollars.
From the creation of portable radar in WW2 to beaming the first images of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon in the 60s – Australian innovation has supported the US.
Australian science is globally ranked in the top 10, and Aussie inventions like WiFi, ultrasound greyscale imaging, soft contact lenses, the CPAP, or cochlear implant have grown into massive US companies like Cisco, J&J, ResMed, employing tens of thousands and improving the lives of all Americans.
Whether fighting technology, disease, bushfires, climate change or global conflict, Australia has always supported America with our heads, our hearts and our actions.
Our shared past is an outstanding foundation to build an even brighter future. Australia’s quantum, semiconductor, materials and space science are directly supporting the US’s next phase of growth.
From iron and copper to clean energy and rare earths, Australia can provide the energy, raw materials, and high value components needed to feed the growth of the US’s tech industry and drive the renaissance of their manufacturing sector.
‘Made in America’ can also be ‘Made in Australia’, ensuring the US can manufacture what it needs and build what the world wants.
Our future isn’t about taxes and tariffs it’s about deeper collaboration to solve seemingly impossible problems using Aussie invention to feed US innovation.
Dr Larry Marshall is the outgoing chair of AmCham, the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia. He currently serves as chair at Fortesque Innovation and is on the board of the Australian National University. Dr Marshall is a former chief executive officer at the national science agency CSIRO, and has founded tech startups both in Australia and the United States.
Do you know more? Contact James Riley via Email.