I can certainly say categorically that it’s true of TAFE NSW. For many businesses, partnering with an educational institution and taking advantage of their knowledge base is a great way to get started. Too many businesses allow their fear of getting it wrong to inhibit them from even getting started. The reassurance that an educational institution can provide in getting it right first time is often useful in getting management in the boat.

I know there are a lot of representatives of educational institutions here today, so I do want to flag an area where I think education providers can add value for business.

I've spoken today at some length of the capacity of people from other cultures and countries to contribute ideas and knowledge to our businesses. I think I can say with confidence that they stand ready and willing to do that.

What is not clear to me is whether the people who work with us are receptive to those ideas and more importantly, I think, whether the people we are currently recruiting from our schools and universities are equipped for this changed paradigm.

It seems to me that the one indispensable attribute for anyone engaged in business in the new millennium is curiosity, and yet curiosity seems to me a quality more notable for its absence among our current crop of university graduates.

Recently, we had a vacancy for an entry-level position in our strategic planning department, and a friend had asked me to see if I could find a place for a young woman from one of the top colleges at our most prestigious university.

So I arranged an interview for her, and basically all she had to do was to get through the interview without totally stuffing up and the job was hers – and yet, in the end, we elected not to make an appointment.

We don’t expect a lot from our new entrants – we regard a degree as a useful demonstration of the applicant’s ability to organise their thoughts, express themselves in writing, and present themselves in an articulate manner, but it was when we started to probe for ideas that our applicant came unstuck.

Asked for her views on Australia becoming a republic, she showed absolutely no comprehension of the issues, and asked for her views on homelessness, she offered the opinion that the government should do something about it.

She must have had a huge amount of vertical learning – as she was about to graduate – but was totally bereft of curiosity – let alone ideas.

I was so stunned by the experience that I spoke to her Principal later on and was astonished to discover that daily papers are delivered to the college and remain uniformly unread.

So this young woman had lots of opportunities to broaden her knowledge of current issues, as had her colleagues, and yet her knowledge of the wider world she was about to enter was sadly lacking. Not because she wasn't smart, but because she wasn't curious.

And of no earthly use to us.

I tell you this story to make the point that if we are to create a climate where diversity is valued for its obvious bottom-line benefits, then we need to overcome the apathy and insularity that seems to affect our entry-level graduates.

It's great to be able to process knowledge, but unless the outcome of that knowledge is the ability to generate ideas then our education system is failing us. It might be timely to begin a dialogue between business and education about how we generate an ideas culture for Australia.

If Australia is to become a new economy, then we need to harness the skills and knowledge of Australians of every background and culture, but most importantly, we need to harvest their ideas.

Productive diversity is a great place to begin, because it provides a useful framework for business, but I hope it can be more than that. I hope it can be a springboard for a broader debate about the sort of future we want for this country we love so much, and that the ideas generated by our exposure to all the benefits of diversity lead us to the development of a new economy and a new consciousness of the value of the contribution of all its participants.