Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Moreton—my good friend, and I do respect him a lot, he's got a lot of ability on the soccer field that's for sure—did just mention the meeting of digital ministers in Melbourne. Melbourne is a great town. It's my home town. Although I note with interest that at that meeting of national digital ministers the two government ministers that attended were the Minister for Social Services and the Minister for Finance, by the member for Moreton's own words, and that in essence is the challenge and the issue that we have. This government does not have a minister for the digital economy. This is something that I've spoken about a lot. This government has a minister for the republic—and I'm not here to make a statement on whether the republic is a good or a bad thing, but it's fascinating that they've got a minister when that's not on the agenda. There isn't a referendum this term, as far as I know. It's all about priorities. This government wants to have a minister for the republic, but, as I said, they won't invest in a minister for the digital economy, and that's why I've continued to call on this government to change and admit that they've made a mistake and put someone in this place.

It's about improving the digital technology. The myGov app is an example. It delivers productivity gains for all Australians. Out in Casey we're fortunate to have a rich agricultural community. The farmers benefit from having technology—for example, drones to look at their crops. Tradies benefit by being able to do their paperwork electronically and not have to write it out. There are a lot of gains.

Just three days ago, the Productivity Commission made its five-year productivity inquiry report publicly available. This is a vital report. It's over 1,000 pages. It looks at opportunities for increased productivity to drive economic growth. And that report had some interesting things to say about the digital economy. I'm going to repeat a few quotes. I quote here:

New approaches, such as digital technologies and the better use of data (through artificial intelligence, for example) hold great promise for broadly based productivity gains, including in services.

It also states:

…the uplift in online capacity (among both businesses and households) combined with a broader embrace of the innovative potential of digital technology, can transform the way the economy operates—services in particular—with significant productivity benefits.

As our economy continues to evolve, and to feel the impacts of COVID-19, it can increase our digital capacity and it can lead to productivity gains.

I was working in the digital and tech sector when COVID hit. About two weeks into the start of the pandemic our CEO, Ray, based in Toronto, said to us—and he was right—'In the next 10 weeks we will see a transformation in digital that we thought would take 10 years' and that's what has happened. We're at a unique opportunity to take advantage of these opportunities that have come out of COVID. Yet this government has not invested in a minister for the digital economy. Clearly state governments have invested, because this government is holding meetings with those ministers. I can imagine that meeting, where all of the ministers for the digital economy turn up and the Minister for Social Services and the Minister for Finance are there—and that's not a criticism of them, but it's a criticism of Anthony Albanese and the Labor government. They don't understand the significance of this opportunity. You need a minister to set out an overall strategy.

The former government had the 2030 digital strategy. Senator Jane Hume set out those priorities of how we could take advantage of the digital economy but also mitigate some of the threats. We did talk about the cybersecurity threat—and we have seen that through Optus, through Medibank and through Latitude just this week. There are clear risks involved as we transition and continue to transition to the digital economy. But there are great opportunities and the Productivity Commission inquiry have outlined those.

It's also why I've also called for the introduction of a technological assessment office, similar to the PBO, so that we as parliamentarians can get support and information about technology, papers on emerging trends, so we can make sure we're at the forefront of what's happening, because the legislation we make in this place impacts what happens. The reality is that the speed at which the digital economy moves, the speed at which technology moves, far outpaces how we work as governments in terms of legislation. A body like a technological assessment office will go some way to closing that gap, allowing us as MPs to have up-to-date information on current technological trends and the impacts that'll have on society.

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