When treasury approves ministers announce a plan. When ministers are waiting to see what they might be able to get away with there’s a strategy. And then there are the cases when they want to announce something, but there’s not much to announce. Like when the WA scientists of the year awards were announced the other night and state minister for innovation and ICT Dave Kelly released a science and innovation Framework.

This consists of eight priority areas (mining, energy, health, food, environment, space, technology and STEM) – there are examples for each area but not much that is new – as in money. Mr Kelly points to $40m in specific science and industry funding.