That said, Murray stressed the importance of continual investment in research and development.

"If we make the big breakouts from generally applicable technologies, it is too easy to forget basic research," he said. "Many would reduce the funding for basic research and concentrate on applied research."

This, according to Murray, can lead to attempting to calculate the value of research, which is dangerous, because it's like "trying to explain how you leant to ride a bicycle".

He recommends Australia increase research funding by 25 percent to reach the level of other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

Murray also referred to Nicolas Carr's mantra of 'it's not so much the technology but what is done with it' by saying IT is "possibly" a source of competitive advantage when information processing itself is the basic building block of the industry, for example Internet banking.