They are basically the same and it is a result of different attitudes of capital providers. In Australia, you have more conservative financial institutions and no venture capitalists -> so companies must take less risk.
Related to risk is also innovation. If you can take more risks, you are more willing to purchase product and services, that are not quite ready, but can help you move you further even as they are. If you cannot take risks, you will purchase only products and services, that have already proven their usefulness at other companies. Thus crippling the ability to innovate around you.
If the Australian government cared enough about this issue, they could do something about it - policy changes to encourage financial institutions to be less risk-averse, to encourage more of a domestic venture capital industry to grow. But it isn’t a political priority.
Australia consistently has R&D spending below the OECD average (as percent of GDP). The Australian government could easily fix this, either by increasing public sector R&D funding, or increasing tax concessions for private R&D funding, or both. But they don’t, because it isn’t a political priority.
(And doesn’t culture have a great role to play in determining what is seen as a political priority, and what isn’t?)
They are basically the same and it is a result of different attitudes of capital providers. In Australia, you have more conservative financial institutions and no venture capitalists -> so companies must take less risk.
Related to risk is also innovation. If you can take more risks, you are more willing to purchase product and services, that are not quite ready, but can help you move you further even as they are. If you cannot take risks, you will purchase only products and services, that have already proven their usefulness at other companies. Thus crippling the ability to innovate around you.