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?)