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

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges that:

(a) the digital economy plays a critical role in the Australian economy, helping to drive economic growth and create new jobs;

(b) the Government has not:

(i) provided sufficient funding in the budget to help grow the digital economy;

(ii) produced a digital economy strategy; and

(c) the Government abolished the role of the Minister for the digital economy; and

(2) calls on the Government to prioritise the digital economy by:

(a) providing funding in sufficient levels to advance Australia's digital economy;

(b) delivering a digital economy strategy to make Australian a world-leading digital economy; and

(c) appointing a Minister responsible for the digital economy.

The digital economy plays a central role in the lives of all Australians. We know that digital transformation and the growth of the digital economy have been game changers for our nation, for our economy and for our society. We take for granted many of the benefits of digital services and products, such as Uber, for convenient transport; booking a holiday through Airbnb; or finding an appropriate support worker for a person with a disability, through Australian companies like Hireup or Mable. We take for granted the benefits that services like these, and many others, deliver us. They make our lives easier. They provide customers with greater choice and convenience.

The digital economy has allowed entirely new businesses and sectors to grow and flourish, creating jobs and prosperity. Just think of the various categories which simply did not exist 30 years ago—streaming video, mRNA vaccines, drones, low earth orbiting satellites and additive manufacturing are a few that come to mind.

Talking of low earth orbiting satellites, let me mention two of the many great Australian companies working in this space: Myriota and Fleet Space Technologies, both based in Adelaide, both using low earth orbiting satellites in innovative ways—one using them for services to support agriculture and many other utility type applications; and the other, Fleet Space Technologies, making very exciting use of them to support prospecting for minerals, allowing mining companies to do in a few days what would previously have taken a year or more.

Of course, globally, we've seen huge companies like Amazon, Apple, Samsung and Tencent achieving extraordinary growth. In Australia, there are plenty of good success stories as well: SEEK, founded in 1997, became a top-100 company with a market capitalisation today exceeding $8 billion; Atlassian, founded in 2001, now has a market cap of more than US$43 billion.

The pipeline of digital economy businesses was a major focus for the previous Morrison government. We also had a major focus on the space sector, and, again, the companies that I've mentioned are ones that demonstrate just how important space based technology can be.

Our nation, therefore, is making very good progress when it comes to the digital economy, and I was pleased to join a panel discussion recently at the Tech Summit in Brisbane, with Robyn Denholm, global chair of Tesla, an Australian businesswoman; Scott Farquhar, co-founder of Atlassian; and other tech sector leaders. I reflected there on the progress that has been made since I first got involved, in a public policy sense, in the sector in the late nineties.

But there is much more that needs to be done, and, frankly, the current government needs to work harder. We need a clear commitment from the current government that the digital economy is a clear national priority. We need to work on driving digital take-up in sectors which lag, including the small business sector. A recent survey found that nearly a third of small businesses are still doing their record keeping largely physically; they're still collecting the invoices and chucking them in a shoebox, and, at the end of the year, taking them to their accountant.

If you're not using cloud based internet accounting services like Xero, MYOB or many of the other service providers, then, almost certainly, you also don't have a digital sales and marketing strategy. And that means you're missing lots of customers and every year you're likely missing more customers as, with each passing year, the percentage of Australians who are digital natives—those who wouldn't think of going anywhere but online to work out where the business or product that they're looking for is to be found—gets higher and higher.

We need to see a national digital identity system. This was a major priority for the Morrison government. There was a lot of work done—some $600 million was spent on it—but this has really drifted since the current government came to power. And we need more of a focus on the digital delivery of government services. Unfortunately, this government is more interested in responding to the pressures that they get from union bosses, who are much more enthusiastic about the 1950s-style backward-looking economy. But Australians are going in a different direction. They want government services delivered digitally. Our economy needs to be more digital, and that will continue to be a focus for the opposition.

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