Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, as you know, I am the co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Innovation and Enterprise, a bipartisan group that has been established to draw greater connections between parliamentarians, innovators, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and others who are looking at the new jobs of the future and the start up sector in Australia. We are a group that is very interested in understanding how we can best promote the skills that people are going to need in this country to work in the jobs and careers of the future, how we can support entrepreneurialism, how we can support start-ups, and in what ways government can play a role in ensuring the settings are right. That is why I have been so delighted to have the opportunity to speak to so many people who are engaged in the sector.

There are three things that I want to mention that have arisen out of those discussions that I have had over the course of the past few weeks and months. The first is the importance of computational thinking, science, technology, engineering and mathematics from as young an age is possible. The next is the significance of improving the regime for access to finance and capital here in Australia, particularly for start-ups. The next is the importance of diversity, particularly getting women engaged in innovation and entrepreneurialism in this country, both on the venture capital and funding side and on the business and entrepreneurialism side.

The reason those three things are important is that we need to think about how our economy is going to look in the future. As our economy transitions, we all know that a lot of the construction work in the big resources projects is coming to an end. It will mean that there will be a transition into a new form of resources work in this country where we are in the production phase rather than the construction phase, and that is going to mean a change to our economy. We also know that there is going to be growing opportunities and markets for services both domestically and internationally as Australia builds our services exports, which we need to do for the future of our economy. We also know when we look at the nations where there has been great entrepreneurialism that those nations are reaping the economic benefits of that entrepreneurialism.

I want to say the following few things about those three topics I mentioned. First is computational thinking. There is unanimity amongst the sector that we need to develop computational thinking skills in kids from as young an age as possible—preferably kindergarten and certainly throughout primary school and into senior. That is why I believe really strongly in the announcements that Bill Shorten made on budget reply night in this place in respect of ensuring that coding gets into schools, that kids have access to coding. It is really delightful to hear about work that organisations such as Google do to get out to remote and rural schools to give kids who might not have the same opportunities as their city counterparts to engage in coding and robotics work, for example, the opportunity to do that. It is great to hear of opportunities like the FIRST program—a robotics program through competitions in robotics—which kids are now getting access to. It is really important to hear about that.

I am also really proud of Bill Shorten's announcements in respect of getting teachers and kids skilled up and knowledgeable about science, technology, engineering and maths. Everyone I speak to from a big resource company to a new cutting-edge start-up wants to know that there is a real commitment in this nation to building those STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—skills in our children and our adults as we move into a changing economy and the jobs of the future.

The next thing I quickly want to touch on is finance and access to venture capital. It is really important when we look at the way that finance for start-ups, venture capital and angel investment work in this country that we think about what we need to do to ensure that we start to promote and really invigorate venture capital in Australia. We are seeing a lot of really interesting work being done in that space. For example, I have recently had conversations with AVCAL, with Lynne Thornton from Scale Investors and with other venture capitalists. They want to know what can be done to further encourage venture capital in this country, and it is something which our group is very interested in. Of course, access to finance is not just about VC; it is also about things like employee share ownership, which we have had a very bipartisan approach to in this parliament. I also went to mention Bill Shorten's budget reply announcement of finance for start-ups in a way that does not require you to put your own house on the line—a very important initiative from Bill Shorten in this space.

Finally, I want to mention the really important issue of women in innovation. I spoke to an entrepreneur who has a great business, an online shopping business, and she told me of the fact that when she went looking for capital almost everyone in the sector was a man. That is fantastic but it does not mean that you understand the venture capital needs of the businesses that are going to attract female consumers into the future. So we need to work on diversity.