From the AFR over the weekend:
“The rhetoric and the language I think is dangerous for the ability to attract that talent and retain that talent,” he said.
“The ‘Australia first’ is a very nationalist argument, very exclusive, not inclusive. And here we’re trying to hire someone in Australia by telling them we really want you.”
He said most of the complaints from staff and those employees in the pipeline came from a feeling that “they are not wanted by this country”.
…Mr Cannon-Brookes said denying visa holders a path to permanent residency was a “bad idea” but that the impact of the rest of the program on Atlassian was going to be “minimal”.
“Most of the tightening of restrictions are things that, at Atlassian, we already do – like police checks, minimum work experience, and hiring first locally,” he said.
“Everyone in technology should be saying ‘actually that makes a lot of sense, I’m totally fine with that’.”
The problem was that the “politics is clearly going in the wrong direction listening to their rhetoric”.
He warned the government’s nationalistic message would hurt its “ideas boom” reputation and give an edge to competing countries.
There is no “ideas boom”. It was just another Do-nothing Malcolm brain fart.
Still, Mr Cannon-Brookes’ interjection is one of a increasing number from the young billionaire. And it is time we examine what kind role he is playing and might play in Australian political economy.
Let’s recall the words of John Hempton at Bronte Capital in 2012:
Wayne Swan the Treasurer of Australia (in UK parlance the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in US parlance the Secretary of the Treasury) has been publicly criticizing the new Australian billionaires and their political influence warning that they are a risk to the Australian ethos of the “fair go”.
He is quoted as follows:
“A handful of vested interests that have pocketed a disproportionate share of the nation’s economic success now feel they have a right to shape Australia’s future to satisfy their own self-interest.”Swan’s critics have accused him of “class warfare”.
This will be highly familiar to American readers who have got used to living in a world where lots of money gives you better access to speech. I have barely met an American who disagrees with this sentiment but mainly when the said pile of money disagrees with them.
To liberals in America the Koch brothers are evil incarnate.
Several conservatives think the same thing about Warren Buffett when he argues the rich should pay more tax. Governor’s Christie’s comments were just plain angry. George Soros induces apoplexy in some conservatives.
And most Americans think there is something unseemly about K-Street and the influence peddling lobbyists of Capital Hill.
Money politics – American style – is settling in in Australia. Wayne Swan knows it.
But in Australia it is potentially much more dangerous than in America. Our new-era Australian billionaires – the ones Wayne Swan rails against – are all billionaires from resource extraction. They all get their money by digging up things that potentially belong to all Australians and selling them to foreigners. And they railed against the resource rent tax (a tax whereby the rest of us got paid something for their bounty). As well they might. And they rail against carbon trading schemes.
Indeed American style money politics in Australia is far more insidious than in the US because our billionaires are far less diverse. A diversity in billionaires (and in the way they make their money) gives us a diversity of billionaire opinion. You can get the Koch Brothers and George Soros in one system – and to some extent their opinions (and the money with which they foist them onto the rest of us) offset each other. The balance is preserved.
Here we risk no balance. And so I am writing a post to tell you just how important Frank Lowy has become. Frank is an opinionated billionaire who made his money from property management and shopping centres. He is “Mr Westfield”. He is also highly opinionated and funds his own think-tank (the Lowy Institute). I have in the past disagreed with him strongly – but at the moment I am just darn pleased that he is there.
Lowy is fighting with Clive Palmer (a resources billionaire) about of all billionaire disputes – the business of owning football teams. But I hope that is just the start of it. He is our most opinionated non-resource billionaire, one with a global perspective – and suddenly he is part of the future of Australian democracy.
Since 2012, the resources boganaires have been replaced by the property boganaires in the likes of Harry Tribuboff and Jerry Harvey. What has not changed is the tenor of billionaire commentary has remained repulsively self-centred and narcissistic. Instead of fights against rent taxes today we have fights against negative gearing and immigration reform. And little, or not enough certainly, contributions to anything beyond themselves in the form of public goods.
The billionaire political economy space is rarefied. As an uber-wealthy individual one need not fill it, but if he so chooses to his words carry spectacularly undue weight. So, what has and might Mr Cannon-Brookes achieve?
His recent interjection into the energy crisis suggested that he is, at least, a rational human being with a commitment to science. He is young, after all, and the beard as well as casual Gen Y demeanor mark him out as a progressive sort of gent so that’s is encouraging.
As a wildly successful IT entrepreneur he appears to be something of a model of the contemporary global Australian:
How did Cannon-Brookes and Helen raise a billionaire? “The only lasting things that you can pass on to your children are not assets, but your value system, and yourself as the best role model you can be.”
A key element of his children’s upbringing was what he calls “globality – the multicultural, multinational milieu – whatever nationality you’re with or dealing with, to them it’s not even a question they’re just used to it”.
But, let’s be honest here, when he is discussing 457s, Mr Cannon-Brookes is also talking his book. Atalassian would rather import talent than build it in Australia. Perhaps some of that is vital but it’s not to the wider IT sector, nor many other sectors that have overused and abused the visa system.
This abuse is not benefiting Australia. Neither is the mass immigration that is a part of the same set of policies. The open borders approach of the major parties is not just “free markets”, it is designed to support particular industries at the expense of many others. The winners are housing, banks, retail and services that derive benefit from a rising headcount even as standards of living fall per capita owing to:
- a housing bubble and household debt;
- declines in competitiveness by keeping interest rates and the currency too high, and
- sinking local wages.
The losers are the tradable sectors, such as IT (and Atlassian) as everything else is hollowed out.
Mr Cannon-Brookes appears on the surface likely to counter-balance the largely awful boganaire loons that have so far taken from Australia far more than they have added to it. But he should be aware that in the shriveled and selfish Australia of today, dominated by a spectacularly shallow media and national discussion, big money talks VERY loudly.
It should therefore have a very clear idea of what it wants to say well in advance.
