Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I want to speak particularly about the digital economy and this government's complete neglect of the digital economy. The sad fact is that this government does not have a minister for the digital economy. The digital economy was a clear priority for the previous government. We had a minister for the digital economy. We had a clear goal for Australia to be a leading digital economy by 2030. We had clear policy initiatives such as the Consumer Data Right, which allows consumers to have access to their own data and for that data to then be made available to providers, who could say, for example, 'We have analysed the history of your bank account and the history of your lending practices, and we can do a better deal for you.' The Consumer Data Right is all about leveraging the power of the digital economy to deliver greater benefits for consumers, and that was a clear priority for the previous government.

My questions for the minister are: when will this government appoint a minister for the digital economy? When will this government commit to a national digital economy strategy, something that the previous government had? When will this government recognise that one of the ways of addressing the clear productivity problem which Australia faces—and we've seen some very sobering statistics on productivity just in the last few days—is to have a clear focus on the digital economy and the productivity benefits that it can bring?

One very good example of the benefits that the digital economy can bring is digital platforms. This was addressed by the Productivity Commission in its recent five-year productivity review highlighting the importance of digital platforms in stimulating productivity and innovation. We have seen, of course, millions of Australians embrace this over the last decade. Many millions of us regularly get around with ride-sharing services like Uber, Ola and ingogo. We order meals through platforms like DoorDash, Menulog and Uber Eats. We find someone to help with a job around the home using services like Airtasker. You would think a government that says it's committed to innovation and says it's committed to improving productivity would be determined to bolster this sector. Instead, they are virulently opposed to it. Indeed, the minister for industrial relations has described the gig economy as a cancer. Why has he done that? Why is this government hostile to the digital economy and hostile to the gig economy? The reason is that the union bosses don't like it. What the union bosses want to do is go back to the 1970s, when most people were employed full time, when we had an overwhelmingly male workforce. That's the change that the union bosses want to achieve, and that's the change that this government is being responsive to.

But, as the Productivity Commission has rightly highlighted, the gig economy offers significant potential productivity benefits, and at a time when we face, as a nation, a significant productivity problem it is important that we should be encouraging developments in this area. As the Productivity Commission pointed out in its recent five-year productivity inquiry, the gig economy is bringing economywide benefits by boosting productivity through 'matching efficiency in service markets and spurring technological innovation by platforms and their competitors'. It's no surprise that Australians are responding to this innovation in very large numbers—both the millions of Australians who use this service and the hundreds of thousands of Australians who have responded to the opportunity to provide their services in a flexible way at a time that suits them, often doing work that they fit into a life with their other responsibilities—which might be study or family responsibilities. Those are choices that Australians have made, and the digital economy has facilitated them making those choices but, regrettably, this government is hostile to those choices and hostile to the gig economy. That is why we have seen the workplace relations minister describing the gig economy as 'a cancer'.

My question for ministers here with economic responsibilities—I note with some disappointment that again this government is showing its contempt for parliamentary scrutiny by the Treasurer not being bothered to turn up. Instead, we have an outer minister here. The question I ask of the minister is: why is the government so determined to impose policies that would adversely impact the digital economy? What is this government doing to be serious about growing the digital economy so that Australia doesn't lag behind the rest of the world, something we are at serious risk of under the mess of policies this government currently has?

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