Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

One industry sector in this country is paying particularly close attention to this debate and the broader policy development occurring in this area. It's our local tech sector, which provides a lot of jobs for a lot of young talent and is generating a lot of wealth for the country, but is also confronted with the fact that skills shortages are holding back their further growth and their ability to meet the needs of so many other firms that are reliant on either the innovations they produce or the support they are able to provide, bearing in mind that tech is a massive enabler of industry. We all feel it as well. Every single member of this place is loaded up with so many items of equipment: phones, iPads, laptops, desktops. All the people that work with those MPs are reliant on technology solutions to do their jobs. All the people employed within the Australian parliament—not just the hardware but the brains behind it—to support them to meet the needs of business and government, shows that this is massive. You need talented people to make that happen.

We have had estimates produced about the likely shortfall in the number of people required versus the number of people being produced, and one suggestion is that we will be 100,00 short in the number of people required in the ICT space to meet the demands of local industry. So, it's two things; it's not just the support that's provided at the moment but, importantly, the brains that are used to help drive growth within early-stage innovation companies, particularly. Having those people available is crucial for them when they have a concept and need a tech solution to help create the bridge from where they are at the moment as a concept to it becoming a reality.

This is not a new thing. These skills shortages have been known about for many years. It has been well understood that the inability to access talent is, I would dare say, holding the Australian economy back. Just in the last few months we've had people who are closely tied to innovation in this country raising again their concerns about some of the problems that we're facing. Someone I've got a lot of time for is Bill Bartee, who runs the government's own $200 million CSIRO Innovation Fund Main Sequence Ventures, who stated:

If you look at the number of computer science graduates coming out of universities it is actually declining and half of them are foreign nationals who are going to leave the country. So we have a declining population of developers and engineers at a time when we need them more than ever.

Bill Bartee has been involved in supporting innovation in this country for many, many years.

I too have been speaking up for the sector by saying that we need to focus more on this, because I believe it is choking the local tech sector. It is holding back the digital economy. Skills shortages are preventing us from being able to reach our full potential. I emphasise that this has been known for a while. We're not producing enough graduates. There are concerns about the quality of graduates being produced. The ones who do get produced get poached by overseas firms. The ones that do remain are in high demand and, given that high demand, they are rightly asking for better remuneration outcomes, which drives up costs for business. A number of different proposals were put many years ago, some of which are now being embraced by our competitors—for instance, creating ICT digital traineeships, providing a vocational pathway and a vocational entry point for people to enter the tech sector and get involved. That was proposed in the Australian context nearly five years ago now. This type of thing has been put forward because people know that we need to find not only tertiary sources, from our universities, sources of people who can provide talent, but also vocational pathways. Now we see, in the UK for instance, major tech companies and players opening up those vocational pathways.

What's being done here? Not much. In regard to digital traineeships, it is very hard to see much evidence that a lot is being done to provide young people in this country with a pathway into the sector, so there's this whole pressure building up locally. It's been known about for a long time, but not much is being done. Bizarrely, we have a government—this government—cutting investment in schools, in TAFEs and in universities at a time when we need greater generation of talent. The answer that you would assume would help in part to alleviate this is not being done, so you have this as well. Then what happens? In this environment, last year the government suddenly decided that it will cut, through these rushed changes to the 457 visa arrangements, the only other pathway for getting talent into the local sector.

We need to find a way to generate jobs for locals. But, if we're not doing enough to generate the skills to fill those jobs and then we make changes to the way in which these firms, who are hard pressed to find anyone, fill those roles and we suddenly turn off the tap, what's supposed to happen? Are these firms supposed to be told: 'We just expect you to wither on the vine. We expect you to be choked of talent. If you can't find anyone locally, tough'? This is exactly what happened last year.

Atlassian is a massive success story for Australia. It originated here in this country and is now spreading and is being recognised all over the world as successful. It's an Australian success story. When local players and local tech firms, like Atlassian, say to the government, 'Changing these visas will affect us and the broader sector badly,' Peter Dutton, the immigration minister, doesn't listen to what's being said. In the classic hit-first-think-later response, he chips Atlassian for having the temerity to raise their concerns about a legitimate problem. He said that Atlassian should focus on hiring more local people. Well, Atlassian have done just that. They have an active program of recruitment to bring in locals to be able to fill local jobs. They support people locally.

One of their founders, Scott Farquhar, is a great Western Sydney success story. He emerged out of Western Sydney and has now been involved in this fantastic company. He is part of a firm that invests in skilling up, particularly low-income countries. He also invests in local skills development to ensure that young people are ready for the jobs of the future. They hire people locally as much as they can and they invest in skills development through their foundation, and then they are told off by the immigration minister, who says, 'Do more.' Scott Farquhar rightly pointed out:

The Australian government has gone a long way towards damaging our reputation as a place that people want to come and work globally.

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Even before these new ideas have become law, the sentiment that the government has sent globally is that they are almost shouting out that Australia is closed for business.

We cannot have a situation where the government cuts funds to skill up Australians, does not provide enough support in schools, vocational education and university education and then suddenly decides it will cut off any other source of talent from overseas to be brought into these firms. The government then tells the firms to, effectively, shut up and not complain about it and to hire more locals, when it is not doing the heavy lifting in terms of skills development. It's an outrage. You can understand why people are upset.

The government has talked a lot in fits and starts about innovation. When it wants to get positive media coverage, the government manages somehow to find a report that it can release and says it's committed to innovation, but it actually doesn't do the things in a meaningful, tangible, concrete way to support innovation in this country. The government believes innovation is generated one report at a time, rather than through long-term investments in people that will ensure our country is a smarter country and a country that does things smarter, has a much more efficient economy and generates long-term jobs. That is not the stuff of press releases; it is the stuff of policy. The commitment is there for a longer period of time than the fleeting moment of a tweet. This is where we need to invest real dollars long term to build up local skills and determine how we can bring in people to help work with local talent to build up the broader sector. That's what's completely missing from the government's agenda.

I rate the skill shortages that are affecting the tech sector as the biggest issue confronting that sector right now in this country. We know that automation and technological change are going to have a big impact on the world of work in the longer term and that the jobs people are currently performing are likely to be radically transformed. The race is on to skill up our people so that we have a bridge to take them from their jobs now to new jobs that emerge, so that they're ready for that process. On our side of politics, we are acutely aware of this. It is why we are so focused on this; it is why we intend to set up a particular portfolio relating to the future of work. We recognise that we need to be prepared. People's jobs, as I said, are going to be changed by technology. The jobs they're performing today may not be there tomorrow. New jobs will open up; we need to get people ready. Being able to address the types of things that are required for this sector means that not only young people get skilled up for it but also people in the workforce at the moment who want to get new skills. We need to have some ability to do that.

Our vocational sector is the prime supporter and enabler of that. It should be increasingly seen as the mechanism that will be used when people in workplaces affected by technological change need to get new skills. We must have our vocational sector, our TAFE sector, there at the ready to help people and to help industry with employer-run training to help their workforces, the people who work for those companies, get ready. This is the stuff that's required. But if the government aren't making the investment, aren't making the changes necessary to skill people up, and then suddenly make these rushed changes that they're doing, then they basically put the handbrake on particular sectors like this, like the tech sector, from getting the job done. And it is simply staggering that they would be prepared to tell local firms: 'Just starve yourselves. Don't do your work, because we're not investing in education and we're making these hurried changes.'

It's really Labor that have been pushing the agenda to ensure that we skill up people locally, that we give them opportunities to perform and that we keep a close eye on 457s schemes so that they are not abused and do not deny locals the ability to get the work that they richly deserve. We need to do all this sensibly, not in a rushed or hurried way but with an eye to meeting the needs of companies and workers now, as well as looking after them into the future. Again, Labor have very deep concerns about what has been done previously by the government, and we trust that they will act properly, responsibly and accordingly in the future.

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