When Senator Tim Ayres speaks of resilience, he means the capacity to keep functioning when the world does not cooperate, anchored in a robust industrial base. This Insight places that reading at the centre of the post-2020 turn in industrial policy and asks how it works alongside productivity and competitiveness. The answer lies in design: resilience investments that supply the complements firms need, and capabilities kept at home that also differentiate Australia in interna

Minister Ayres's National Press Club address draws selectively on the SERD's Ambitious Australia report to support a broader industrial policy agenda. The report's proposed SRI architecture is largely absent. R&D is positioned as one of the instruments in a reindustrialisation. The broader innovation system, including management capability, absorptive capacity, and place-based ecosystems, is unaddressed at this stage. No doubt, more is coming on actions and initiatives.

Ministerial speeches at the start of a new tenure rarely change the course of history, but they do set the tone and expectations. When Senator Tim Ayres addressed the CRA Collaborate Innovate Conference on 20 May, he stepped into a familiar ritual in the ebb and flow of policy leadership: the scene-setting speech. For a minister with just a week on the job, the question is not “Did he deliver a new vision?” but “How well did he manage the balancing act between expectation and