“Shaping Australia’s digital future together” “The Tech Council is the trusted voice of the Australian technology industry.”
https://techcouncil.com.au By Cara Waters August 11, 2021 https://www.theage.com.au/business/entrepreneurship/internet-titans-band-together-to-counter-growing-techlash-20210809-p58ha2.html Australia’s software and internet titans have established a new peak body to represent the technology industry, in a bid to strengthen the fast-growing sector’s clout with lawmakers and counter a growing worldwide ‘tech lash’. As foreshadowed by this masthead’s CBD column last week, the newly formed Tech Council of Australia officially launches on Wednesday, with Tesla chair Robyn Denholm overseeing a board that also includes Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar, Afterpay co-founder Anthony Eisen and Canva co-founder Cliff Obrecht. “The tech sector is very new in Australia, and it’s a really positive sign that the government are engaging with us now,” Mr Obrecht said in an interview. “I think historically we haven’t understood each other as well as we could have and this is just a huge step forward.” Key industry players have been frustrated by the technology sector’s failure to lobby effectively on issues in Australia such as encryption laws, the clawing back of research and development tax breaks and changes to the rules over highly skilled migration. “I think from our perspective running Canva we haven’t really had an open dialogue with government, we’ve not known where to go,” Mr Obrecht said. The council will also provide a voice for the sector to counter a global “tech lash” against the sector with claims of anticompetitive behaviour, massive collection of user data and failure to police content. The council is made up of 23 companies across Australia’s tech sector including tech giants Google and Microsoft, homegrown success stories Atlassian, Culture Amp and SafetyCulture and venture capital firms Blackbird, Airtree and Square Peg. Facebook is not a part of the council however Mr Obrecht said this was because it did not have a strong presence in Australia. “I really think this is a step in the right direction in regards to just working together and collaborating and having that open dialogue, setting goals together and working with them on what’s best for sort of not just our sector but Australia,” he said. “The more we can work with the government hand in hand to grow the Australian economy and diversify the Australian economy from its traditional industries to more knowledge based, the better.” Ms Denholm said the technology sector enabled all other sectors, helping mining, agriculture, banking, and health grow and increase productivity. “As we rebuild our economy in the years ahead, technology has the potential to expand and create great jobs for our kids and grandkids,” she said. “Near term, by 2030, the technology sector has the potential to contribute more to GDP than either primary industries or manufacturing.” The council will look to provide a united voice and to campaign for its goals, including for the technology sector to employ one million people by 2025, to grow the value of tech to the economy to $250 billion by 2031 and for Australia to be the best place to start and grow a global company. Research commissioned by the council found Australia’s technology industry already generates $167 billion in output per year and employs 861,000 Australians. During the pandemic, the sector generated 65,000 jobs, the economy’s second highest job creator behind retail and one in 16 working Australians are in the tech sector. -- _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] https://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
