TechLeaders 2024 Conference Speech

I am very pleased to deliver this opening speech at TechLeaders 2024. 

Today I want to argue that the rise of information and communications technology, and of the digital economy which is based on this technology, has been a force for good.

This is not universally accepted, as I will point out by reviewing some of the many criticisms which are made of technology.

Next though I want to point to ten ways in which technology has improved and I believe will continue to improve our prosperity and our quality of life.

Finally I want to highlight five things we need to do in Australia to maximise our chances of securing that improvement. 

Criticisms and Concerns about Technology and the Tech Sector

Let me turn first then to the many fronts on which the technology sector comes in for strong criticism. We could start with the role of the internet as a platform for crime. It might be a romance scam designed to extract cash from the lonely.  It might be putting money into a dodgy financial product because of a fake endorsement on social media from Andrew Forrest or another prominent Australian. 

It might be losing money after you click on a link in a text which appears to come from your bank. Australians reported losing some $26.9 million in 2023 to text-based scams.

Then of course there are the horrifying crimes of sexual exploitation of children, such as the production and dissemination online of videos or photos of abused children.

With most of us spending many hours a week online, and carrying out much of our social interaction online instead of face to face, there are new risks which did not exist in the pre-internet world.  Too many Australians are cyberbullied.  Online trolling can be devastating to its victims.  Excessive social media use is linked to mental health problems, particularly for adolescents. 

So called revenge porn - image based abuse is a better term in my view – particularly affects women. Incredibly, almost a quarter of 18 to 24 year old women in Australia have had a nude or sexual image of them posted online without their consent.

This is but one of many classes of content with very undesirable social consequences which appears in large volume online. 

Terrorist organisations circulate horrifying images of their victims’ violent deaths.  Criminals post videos boasting of the cars they have stolen or the houses they have robbed. 

Information which is wrong or dangerous or both is posted in very large quantity and all too regularly believed, with damaging social consequences – such as the recent riots in Britain. 

These things happen in part because social media platforms do little to nothing to edit or curate content posted by users. Frequently they fail to uphold their own terms of use. 

Another powerful criticism of the rise of the internet and technology is that it has enabled the enormous market power of giant global technology corporations. One example is that Google and Facebook generated almost $11 billion last year selling advertising to Australian businesses.[i]

Their dominant position in the Australian digital advertising market comes at the expense of Australian media businesses like Nine Entertainment and News Corporation (roughly $2.2 billion.) Yet Nine and News bear more than 90 per cent of the cost of original news generation in Australia. 

Then there is the persistent criticism that technology is going to take away our jobs – with particular anxiety at the moment about what artificial intelligence will do to the job market.  Much of the antipathy towards technology comes from the union movement, and that is reflected in the agenda and rhetoric of Ministers in the Albanese Government.

For example, many Australians value the flexible work opportunities offered by digital platforms like Uber, Airtasker or Doordash. An IPSOS poll commissioned by Uber found that 93 per cent of its workers want laws to preserve their flexibility.

But former Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke is more interested in what the union bosses want than the clear preferences of Australians.  He called the gig economy a ‘cancer’ and legislated onerous new workplace making it harder for digital platforms to operate.

Government Services Minister Bill Shorten is just as bad, consciously weakening the technology capability of Services Australia.  He fired more than 1000 specialist ICT contractors, gutting the agency’s capacity to continue to develop its IT systems.  According to Services Australia’s annual Assurance Statement, there has been a conscious management decision taken to pause automation processes. 

And Shorten sent a very clear message to the public servants at Services Australia through his so called Robodebt Royal Commission: algorithms should not be used, technology is bad, and innovation is not be encouraged. 

I am not minimising or dismissing the criticisms of technology which I have mentioned.  On the contrary, a fair part of my political career has been spent working to improve online safety and to tackle the market power of big tech, whether through establishing the eSafety Commissioner or through passing the News Media Bargaining Code. 

But in my view you can recognise that the rise of technology has created new problems - and indeed do something about those problems - while at the same time believing technology is a net force for good.  

Ways that Technology will Continue to Improve Our Lives 

Let me now turn to set out ten areas where I think the quality and prosperity of our lives in Australia will be improved by the continued rise of digital technologies. 

1. A Safer World

To start with, there are the threats like bushfires, floods, cyclones and the other dangers that mother nature serves up regularly.  Through the internet of things, sensors, robotics, artificial intelligence and other technologies, we can monitor threats, respond more quickly, and put fewer humans in harm’s way as we respond.

Tasmanian technology company Indicium Dynamics deploys fire monitoring solutions which draw on data from multiple monitoring devices, working with partners such as Sustainable Timber Tasmania.

Townsville based start up LiXia has an internet of things approach to flood prediction, installing networked sensors along creeks and rivers, to generate predictions of when floods will impact communities downstream of the sensors.

Fighting bushfires is dangerous work – so defence company Rheinmettal is developing a remotely operated fire fighting vehicle is connected to human controllers over the 5G network. This was part funded under the former government’s 5G innovation initiative.  

Little Ripper is an Australian developed drone which performs surf rescues, by flying to a swimmer or surfer in trouble and dropping a ‘rescue pod’ which self inflates once it hits the water. 

The risks that nature creates are not going to go away.  But technology has given us much better ways to both predict danger and to respond once it arrives – and that trend is going to continue. 

2. More empowered consumers 

We all want to be safer.  We also want to get the products and services we want at the cheapest possible price. 

And over the last twenty years, in sector after sector, internet based businesses have developed better, more efficient ways to meet customer needs. If you want to buy or sell a house, or a car, or look for a job or find a new employee, internet platforms like Domain, Realestate.com.au, Drive, carsales.com.au and Seek give you a cheaper, better and quicker way to do it. 

In the economic jargon, the internet has greatly reduced search costs, it has allowed consumers in many markets to have near perfect information, and it has markedly reduced the market power of producers, to the considerable benefit of consumers.

I think there are many more waves of disruption to come – to the benefit of consumers. The insurance sector is a good example. 

Australian insurance start up, Honey, believes that better information about customers and their risk levels lets them offer better pricing. For example, Honey provides its customers with AI-enabled smart sensors to install in their homes – allowing them to offer up to an 8 per cent discount on the customer’s premiums. 

Melbourne based Numerisk uses artificial intelligence to collate data from across the finance industry to produce 'report cards' on a single user-friendly digital dashboard. This lets businesses quickly and accurately assess the quality and risk of multiple insurance products – and in turn get the cover they need at a better price.

3. Greater Use of Digital Technology in Underpenetrated Sectors

The next reason I am optimistic about technology continuing to improve our lives is that there are many sectors of our economy where we have still not yet seen the full potential of digital technology realised.

For example, small businesses account for nearly a third of Australia’s total GDP. According to a 2021 survey carried out by YouGov for software provider SAP, almost one third of the Australian small businesses surveyed are still conducting the majority of their record keeping physically.

Similarly, in the health sector there is a big gap between what happens today and what technology could readily deliver. Imagine if there was a health sector wide standard for the movement of patient information between GPs, specialists, pharmacists and all the other stakeholders.  Today, all too often there are still handwritten letters going from a GP to a specialist, carried there by the patient or faxed – and doubtless frequently lost or misplaced.  

There has been some progress, for example when it comes to electronic prescriptions. Today, around 53% of pharmaceutical benefits scheme or PBS written authority items can be requested via digital channels. But even here there is much scope to improve. 

When a patient is discharged from a hospital with a number of scripts, written on paper, there is no record of those scripts received by the patient’s GP or pharmacy.  It is not unusual that the patient then represents in the medical system due to their health challenges in managing the scripts. 

Under the current government efforts to tackle these issues are proceeding at a ponderous pace. The $400m Health Delivery Modernisation Program has seen four deliverables initially planned for release in 2023-24 pushed into 2024-25.  One of these is a delay to the PBS Safety Net Claims digital lodgement system for pharmacies.

Healthcare is but one of many sectors where there is a big prize available from greater digital take up; others include agriculture, the arts, tourism and construction.  

All are disaggregated sectors, with large numbers of small businesses, rather than a small number of large players. 

Digital take up is faster in sectors where one or more large players have the means and motivation to drive the industry wide take-up of a particular standard. A good example is the new payments platform in the banking sector. Under Osko, money now gets transferred virtually instantly.

I think there are big economic gains if we can find ways to get sector wide take up of digital standards across our economic sectors that are more disaggregated.  

I emphatically do not mean that we need government bureaucrats writing code or mandating industry standards. Instead, I believe the right sorts of policy levers would include giving industry participants economic incentives to use the standards; and identifying and working with the players whose behaviour can drive take up by others.  

4. Better Use of Digital by Government

If we are talking about sectors which underleverage the power of digital and technology to operate more efficiently, we cannot go past government. 

I mentioned Bill Shorten weakening the digital capability of Services Australia and in turn its customer service performance collapsing.  

There is a very strong contrast with the impressive work done by the previous Coalition Government in NSW. Service New South Wales has become well known for its slick use of IT and digital tools, such as the apps it rolled out quickly during COVID.  

But I am optimistic that we can greatly improve the digital experience of citizens in dealing with the Commonwealth government. With better coordination across different departments and agencies, we can deliver a better, more uniform, customer experience.

Today, if I want to apply for a passport via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, I have to generate a wholly new password and email – I cannot use myGovID. This is bizarre and needs to be fixed.

We need to match the user experience levels delivered by private sector organisations. According to Adobe’s most recent Global Government Digital Performance and Inclusion Benchmark, federal agency websites scored below 70 percent for customer experience.

5. Continued Growth of Australia’s Technology Sector

 A fifth reason for optimism is that I think the remarkable growth we have seen in Australia’s tech sector is going to continue. 

When I first got involved in tech sector public policy in 1996, as a young adviser to then Minister for Communications and Information Technology Richard Alston, the Australian tech sector was pretty modest in size and impact. The change over the last thirty years has been profound.

According to a recent Tech Council report Australia is on track to have 1.2 million tech workers by 2030, with the workforce currently standing at 935,000 as of February 2023. This is the product of strong growth with an 8 per cent increase in tech jobs in the past year.

One indicator of the sector’s growth is the existence of Australian technology companies which have a global presence. Atlassian for example reports having more than 300,000 customers in approximately 200 countries. Canva cites over 75 million people in more than 190 countries using its products. CSL has 32,00 employees in over 40 countries around the world. 

Another indicator is the growing number of the wealthiest Australians who made their money in tech. Of those listed in the 2024 AFR Rich List, 28 out of 200 made their wealth in technology. The pattern is even stronger for those under 40 on the rich list: 31 out of 100 in 2023 made their wealth in technology.

By contrast, if you look at the BRW Rich List of 1992, the money typically came from sectors such as property, agriculture, retail and manufacturing.

6. Selling world leading technology from Australia

Another reason for optimism, I believe, is that the Australian tech sector has world competitive expertise across a range of sectors. In this globally networked and interconnected world if you have such expertise your market is no longer just local: it is global.

If you are an Australian tech business generating good sales from Australian corporate customers, it is now a natural next step to seek out customers around the world.  The impressive growth of Safety Culture – now a $2.7 billion business – is but one example. 

This is where software is very different from traditional manufacturing where Australian businesses faced a global disadvantage.  We were not globally competitive making and exporting cars – big metal boxes which cost a lot to ship.  But technology businesses serving the global automotive market absolutely can be competitive.  

Adelaide based Cohda Wireless makes software for connected and automated vehicles – and has won contracts with global automakers like Volkswagen.  Baraja, a company that in its early years was based at the CSIRO facility in West Lindfield in my electorate, has developed improved LIDAR technology – a key component of automated vehicles.  

As the Tech Council rightly points out, Australia’s tech sector includes not only standalone tech businesses; it also includes the very large technology teams in our mining companies, our banks, our retailers, and every other segment of the economy.

The capabilities some of these teams deploy puts their businesses at the very forefront of their industry globally. A good example is Australia’s expertise in remote controlled sophisticated mining operations.  If you get the chance, as I have had, to visit the Rio Tinto Control Centre at Perth airport, or the equally impressive Hub operated by Fortescue in the Perth CBD, I urge you to go and have a look.  In both centres, hundreds of people work in front of banks of screens and monitors, remotely controlling highly complex and sophisticated industrial operations 1500 kilometres away in the Pilbara.

There are also plenty of standalone tech businesses serving the sectors where Australia has world scale, including of course mining but also agriculture, financial services and education.  A big mining sector means a big mining tech sector, and it also means a steady flow of start ups bringing clever new ideas to market; on the most recent count there are 151 start ups in Australia’s mining tech sector.

One good example, now well beyond start up status, is the rapidly growing Fleet Space Technologies in Adelaide. Their clever approach using nano-satellite technology to scan for minerals underground has reduced the timeline in prospecting for minerals reserves from several years down to a matter of days.  

An earlier stage mining tech company I met recently is Wollongong based Torqn, which has developed a social media like platform for people who work on heavy construction and mining equipment from companies like Komatsu and Caterpillar.  It’s a clever way to help operators, maintainers, owners, suppliers and manufacturers – and their people, both blue collar and managerial – to connect and share knowledge about that equipment, in a way which feels quite familiar to users of social media platforms. 

7. Technology and Equity

Few could disagree that the Australian tech sector is growing and providing high paid jobs to many Australians. But we regularly hear concerns expressed that while the technology explosion may benefit some people, its benefits are not shared evenly. In fact, I think there are reasons for optimism on this front: technology is available more equitably than was once feared and I think that trend will continue.

In the 1990s, we regularly heard the term ‘digital divide’, to express the idea that the less affluent were being left behind because they could not access the internet. If you did not have a desktop computer which cost thousands of dollars, and a monthly fixed line telephone subscription and a separate payment for dial up internet access, you were unable to connect.

But today, by far the most common device people use to access the internet is the smartphone. You can buy one for less than $400. With a prepaid mobile service you can get online for a low, fixed amount.  Smartphone ownership is near ubiquitous. As I learned while I was Social Services Minister, there are services targeted at homeless people designed around the fact that even people who are homeless very often will have a smartphone. 

There are plenty of other ways in which technology can be a force for equitable access to services and resources that otherwise would be available only to the privileged few. When I was Arts Minister, I was concerned that the national collecting institutions – like the National Museum and the National Library – are located in Canberra and most Australians only rarely, if ever, get the chance to visit. 

But the National Library’s Trove service allows digital access, wherever you are located in the world, to many of the documents and books in its collection – including its extraordinary collection of newspapers going back well over hundred years.  Many cultural institutions around the world have made their collections available digitally in this way.

8. Yes we can regulate tech!

Let me turn to another reason why I am optimistic: I believe we are starting to do a better job of regulating to deal with some of the negatives that technology has brought. As I mentioned earlier, the Morrison Government’s News Media Bargaining Code was demonstrably successful in securing payments from Facebook and Google to Australian news media businesses for the use of content generated and paid for by those news media businesses. 

Of course the path to get there was not smooth: Google threatened to withdraw from providing search in Australia and Facebook shut down the Facebook pages of a number of Australian news media businesses for several days. Nevertheless, in my view this outcome demonstrated that the relationship between sovereign governments and internet businesses is gradually normalising. 

Had this all happened in 2011 and not 2021, Facebook and Google might well have won this fight. But governments everywhere are fighting back, and the rather remarkable leave passes from normal regulation which internet businesses seemed to enjoy for the first fifteen or twenty years of their existence are gradually being withdrawn. 

There are many things we could point to in the history of online regulation in Australia to demonstrate this point.  The establishment of the eSafety Commissioner in 2014 is one example.  The removal of the exemption enjoyed by online businesses from GST for sales under $1,000 in 2018 is another. 

In country after country around the world there is now legislation dealing with online safety, and the work done in Australia has been influential in this global movement. 

There is no doubt there are plenty of issues left to tackle, as I highlighted at the start of my speech today.  But I am optimistic that these issues can be dealt with. 

9. Technology in the care sector

I have spoken a fair bit about the economic potential of technology. But I am equally optimistic about the social potential of technology.  Already technology is extensively used in care settings, such as aged care, disability care and in hospitals. I believe those trends will only continue – to the great benefit of those receiving care.

During my time as Minister for Social Services, which then included the National Disability Insurance Scheme, it was very moving to see how technology is helping people with disability to live a full life.  I remember visiting a young woman with cerebral palsy, who had recently moved into a specially designed one bedroom apartment, equipped for example with remote controlled blinds and lights and appliances. Despite her disability, she had sufficient movement in one of her hands to be able to operate all of these devices at the touch of a button – and she was absolutely delighted at the independence she now enjoyed.

Another area of obvious potential is AI powered entertainment and interaction for those in aged care. Some may see the use of such technology as a grim prospect; but in my view it holds the promise of providing additional stimulation and engagement for residents who might otherwise wait a long time before a nurse or other human comes to interact with them. It also means freeing up skilled aged care and nursing staff to do less bed making and filling in charts and other tedious tasks, and have more time for quality interactions with those their care.

10. The march of science 

So far I have mainly spoken about business and public policy factors which make me a techno-optimist. But there is an important underlying factor which has come home to me very strongly over the last two years as Shadow Minister for Science.  In that time I have visited many scientists working in labs at universities and research centres and businesses across Australia who amaze me with what they are doing. 

Let me mention just two of many examples I could give. 

Recently at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne I met stem cell scientists who expect before long to be able to take cells from a patient, turn them into the stem cells for an organ of any kind, grow that organ, and put it back into that patient. 

At Q-CTRL – an Australian quantum company spun out from Sydney University – fundamental research in physics is being turned into practical, operational devices which can be used in remote sensing and detection over very long distances with levels of accuracy previously unimaginable.

My visits to labs have made it very clear to me that the rise of computing power and the technology sector is integral to modern scientific progress.  In fields like medicine, biology and genomics, the role of quantitative techniques and computing power is critical. Indeed one of the highest potential applications for the emerging field of quantum computing will be in drug simulation and discovery. 

Five Things We Need to Do

I have argued that there are strong grounds to be optimistic that the tech sector will continue to drive prosperity and better lives for Australians.  Let me close by briefly mentioning five things I think we need to do.

1. Stronger and More Confident Economic Regulation of the Technology Sector

The first thing we need is stronger and more confident economic regulation of the technology sector. I have argued that the News Media Bargaining Code was an example of this principle.  By contrast the current government has been far too tentative in responding to Facebook’s refusal to renew its deals with Australian news media businesses. Leaving this issue in the hands of the Assistant Treasurer sends a clear signal to the big tech companies that the Australian government does not see this as a priority.

There is no doubt that the big tech companies have enormous market power – and there are plenty of issues which need policy attention in Australia. There is the 30 per cent share Apple takes from the revenues of every app in the app store. There is the increasing power of Apple and other players in the payments sector in Australia. There is the margin Uber creams off from every trip taken by an Uber user in Australia.  

The ACCC did excellent work on the economic regulation issues in the tech sector under the previous Coalition Government, but there has been little political support or focus on these issues under the current government.  That needs to change. 

2. Greater Focus on the Sustainability of the Underlying Physical Networks

The next thing we need is a greater focus on the sustainability of the underlying physical networks.  The digital economy is enormously important – and it all runs on physical networks built and maintained by Telstra, Optus, TPG, NBN and the rest of our telco sector. 

That network in many places is fragile.  In too many parts of our 7.7 million square kilometre continent, there is little or no redundancy in the network.  During the 2019-20 bushfires, on the worst day there were around 150 mobile base stations off the air across New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.  No mobile coverage means no EFTPOS as well as no capacity to call or text for help. 

As well as the physical fragility, there is the economic reality that the margins made by the telcos in building and operating networks are modest, while the global tech firms which ride over those networks are making supernormal returns.  This disparity is presenting a growing risk in my view, because if a network operator is not financially sustainable, in all or some of its operations, the risk is that the network shrinks the footprint over which it operates or even, at the limit, ceases to operate entirely. 

3. Safety By Design

I spoke earlier about the work of the eSafety Commissioner. One of the principles Julie Inman-Grant has advocated for is safety by design. 

I think there is a clear analogy with the automotive industry.  When cars first came along, 130 years ago or so, it was immediately clear how useful they were.  Almost as soon it became clear they were dangerous.  Since that time, the range of safety features built in as standard has grown and grown and grown: seat belts, airbags, crumple cages, side pillars, and more recently, lane keeping and driver assist technology.  Cars are designed with the prospect of a crash in mind; they are designed to be as safe as possible. 

We have a long way to go in the digital world, but we need to apply this same principle.

4. Jobs in Tech 

The fourth thing we need to do, I believe, is attract more people into the tech sector to take advantage of the likely continued growth in available jobs.

Some of these will jobs require a bachelor’s or higher degrees in computer science; but there are plenty of jobs available to people who complete certifications from particular IT vendors like Microsoft. 

One good example is the focus of Australian tech company, Ethan, on attracting indigenous Australians into the business to be trained and then to work as IT support workers. 

There is good work going on to attract more women into the IT sector, and also to attract people from other career backgrounds to do mid-career training and switch across to IT. 

In my view we need a continuing focus on efforts to expand the pool of people drawn into IT jobs. 

5. Elect a Tech Friendly Government

The last thing we need to do – you won’t be surprised to hear me say – is elect a more tech friendly government.  The Liberal Party has been a consistent champion of the tech sector and the digital economy, going back as far as the Howard Government. We established the National Office for the Information Economy in 1997 and set up a regulatory framework for Early Stage Venture Capital Limited Partnerships in 2002.

Over nearly thirty years we have had a consistent focus on making it more commercially attractive to invest in innovative and start-up businesses.  Under Prime Minister Turnbull, our 2016 National Innovation and Science Agenda further improved tax settings for ESVCLPs, and provided additional tax incentives for early-stage investors in start-up businesses.

Under the Morrison Government we set clear goals to build Australia’s digital economy including the ambition of making us a top 10 digital economy and society by 2030 and supported this ambition with a detailed Digital Economy Plan.

By contrast the Albanese Government abandoned the goal of being a top ten digital economy; it does not have a Minister for the Digital Economy; and as I have argued, many of its senior Ministers reflect a union-driven hostility towards technology and innovation. 

Conclusion

Let me conclude then as I began.  I am an optimist about the technology sector and what I believe it will continue to deliver for Australia and the world.  The march of digital technology has brought problems as well – but I believe that with sensible policies we can address those problems effectively. 

Should we return to Government, the Coalition will continue to be a strong champion of the technology sector and will work to capture its full potential to improve the prosperity and quality of life of all Australians.