Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australia has a strong background of innovation. This is something that I have particularly witnessed from the state of WA. Operating precision equipment in the harshest outback conditions is something that the mining industry has done but is this something that we can do better? Absolutely. That's why I rise today to speak to the Education Legislation Amendment (Startup Year and Other Measures) Bill 2023. The Albanese Labor government is investing in the entrepreneurial innovation potential of our community. After a decade of delay and waste under the coalition, it's more important than ever to modernise and diversify our economy through innovation and entrepreneurship. When I spoke on the National Reconstruction Fund bill last week I drew attention to the damning ranking of Australia. The Harvard University Center for International Development, which ranks economies according to their diversity and complexity to assess their potential for growth, placed Australia at 91 out of 133 countries in 2020. Our neighbours on that scale were Kenya and Namibia and, in the last decade, we have slipped 21 places. I wonder who was driving the federal government wheel? This is incredibly disappointing.

Australia has a proud history of innovation. Australians invented Gardasil vaccine in the early 2000s, dramatically reducing the risk of cervical cancer worldwide. We invented technology behind wi-fi. We invented the cochlear implant enabling those with severe hearing loss a sense of sound, and, for those wine lovers on a budget, we invented cask wine. Our innovation nature is not sticking as readily as we would like it to. Our economy lacks diversity, and many of our great thinkers are going offshore or having their products produced offshore. Imagine what our country and economy would look like if what was invented here was actually made here.

Australia played a leading role in the creation of photovoltaic solar panels but today over 90 per cent of these are manufactured in one country. Our innovative streak will help pave the path towards a diversified the economy which will underpin our economic security and our future. Having all our eggs in one basket exposes us to greater shocks when economic conditions change. I think of our resource sector and how many in my home state of WA swing between the boom and bust cycles. I had a good run of working in the resource sector. Like many West Australians, I have worked on mine sites in country WA and country Victoria, and have spent my fair share amount of time wearing high-viz and getting covered in red dust. But to grow our economy in the long-term we need to avoid these boom-bust cycles associated with commodities and we must invest in our brains—our knowledge economy—and adding value upstream. We can't rely on just one sector for Australian jobs and to grow our economy.

On average, across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, young firms account for approximately 20 per cent of employment and create almost half of all new jobs. In Australia, startups have a high impact on the creation of new jobs and the Startup Year program will work to support this new growth. This bill is a pillar in the Albanese Labor government's plan for growing our economy, creating jobs for the future and investing in the potential of our nation's innovators.

The National Reconstruction Fund and the higher education amendment bill will create greater research commercialisation opportunities, and the Rewiring the Nation policy will fast track clean energy jobs. These are all matters that have been brought before this parliament by the Albanese Labor government to position our economy for success in the long term, just like the Education Legislation Amendment (Startup Year and Other Measures) Bill 2023.

This bill is about unlocking the potential of our nation's innovators. It gives our students the skills, experience and capabilities to realise their entrepreneurial potential and support our country in achieving our national priorities. Because when innovators succeed in this country, there are huge benefit for our community. I would like to discuss a couple of great innovators who, through their startups, have made huge impacts on the global stage.

Ajay Prakash had the vision to empower a billion people to discover, reskill and nurture meaningful careers through his education tech start-up called EntryLevel. He is one of Australia's top 100 innovators for 2022 and is a Forbes under 30 entrepreneur. Ajay's platform delivers short, intensive, affordable programs with professional mentors from companies including Atlassian, Wise and Startmate. Recognising that almost 200 million jobs were lost during 2020, largely due to COVID, Ajay wanted to think about quick ways to re-skill people to stay relevant in the job market. Ajay's ambitious goal is to prevent mass unemployment by 2030.

The thing I find particularly refreshing about Ajay is that he openly talks about failing. At the University of New South Wales, where he studied, he was part of a program that supported entrepreneurs in a serious way. He explained that he was only able to launch EntryLevel because he had spent 80 per cent of his university years launching and constantly failing at various endeavours. Smart entrepreneurial culture has taught me that it's important to fail fast and fail small to crack open the next innovation. Remember, the alternative is worse, which is failing slowly in a big, spectacular way and that is something that we all want to avoid. From his website, Ajay describes himself as 'a serial stuff up who is failing forward one step at a time'.

Through this bill I think that there are a number of Ajay's who may come, thanks to the Albanese Labor government, and be supported through additional funding to participating universities to expand their existing accelerator program offerings and give students that space to fail, learn and try again. Failure is an essential step on any journey to success. It was bizarre to hear the member for Bradfield talk yesterday about how prospective students should be mindful that 90 per cent of startups fail, in an attempt to pour cold water on the aspirations of this bill. You think that the so-called party of business would understand the fundamentals of entrepreneurialism. Taking risks is a part of this journey. When I stand up and speak in this place, I wont douse down the aspirations of our nation's best and brightest, because I know that the Labor Party is the true party of aspirational Australians, including those in business. I will stand up and encourage them to succeed, and, if they fail, try again. This bill will create a mechanism to ensure that more innovators and entrepreneurs are fine-tuning their skills in our nation's great universities.

I also think of students who leave their studies to pursue a startup who may stay on with their studies and broaden their entrepreneurial skills by taking a higher education based accelerator program. Perth born and raised CEO of Canva, Melanie Perkins, dropped out of the University Western Australia to pursue her first startup. On reflection upon her journey, from creating a year book startup to becoming one of Australia's youngest billionaires, she mentioned how daunting it was to step into the entrepreneurial space with little experience. She's very impressive, and I have no doubt that many people in this place use Canva to create materials. The thing that I would say is that while her story is inspiring, for every success story there are countless stories of people that have left university without qualifications and have not had support to actually try those innovative startups. Australia can and should be a land of innovators.

In my electorate of Swan, Curtin University runs its own highly successful accelerator program. More than 60 businesses have participated in that program, moving on to launch highly innovative products. They've won awards and investment funding. They've also been tackling wicked problems. For example, just last week we heard about the cybersecurity threats Latitude Financial is facing. The truth is these entrepreneurs are looking at dealing with these wicked problems. Hyprfire is a Western Australian startup which was hatched at Curtin University by PhD candidate Stefan Prandl. It's a cybersecurity company developing software solutions to detect and mitigate malware transfers and denial-of-service attacks. Stefan participated in the Curtin Accelerate program to build the business model and his go-to-market strategy. The company has now raised $2.2 million and is actively selling its software solutions. I am so excited about the structural support that the Albanese Labor government will be able to provide to the next generation of entrepreneurs and the new generation of new successful businesses.

In addition, I would like to acknowledge that the bill before us does more than just create jobs and foster innovation. This bill also creates the legislative authority for guidelines on how the Startup Year HELP assistance is allocated, including considerations for equitable access for disadvantaged and under-represented groups. I think that mentioning this is important, especially since yesterday was the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The historic injustices of racism and discrimination in Australia linger today. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders hold just 0.7 per cent of senior management positions nationally, despite making up three per cent of the population. To take the words of Yawuru-Bunuba lawyer and entrepreneur Cara Peek, who founded the Broome based innovation hub called Make it Happen:

If you don't have people running businesses, from a diverse cultural base, they're not out there understanding, looking for and hiring, the skill sets and the cultural diversity that needs to be there.

By providing places for disadvantaged and underrepresented groups, this legislation creates a pipeline for historically marginalised groups to become innovators and entrepreneurs. The truth is that our first innovators in Australia were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and they will continue to be. As more students from these backgrounds go through this program I hope that disparities are bridged, particularly the employment and the income gap that shamefully exists between First Nations people and the rest of Australia.

I want to conclude by saying that these students need access to education that will advance their careers and encourage an innovation-driven Australia. I can't wait to see the new generation of Albanese innovators and the new people who participate in this program.

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