From Mr Scott Farquhar:
Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar has warned the government’s proposed changes to modernise the visa system could stunt the growth of local tech companies, and are already causing harm, ahead of the expected release of the official report next week.
The tech billionaire said Australian-based technology companies needed to bring in specialist top level managers to grow their operations and train up local staff, but that the government’s plan to remove a clear path to permanent residency meant most would no longer consider coming.
“The Australian government has gone a long way towards damaging our reputation as a place that people want to come and work globally,” Mr Farquhar said.
“Even before these new ideas have become law, the sentiment that the government has sent globally is that they are almost shouting out that Australia is closed for business.”
He said he knew of a large software company based in Melbourne, which was looking to hire a head of engineering to run a team of hundreds of engineers. There were no Australian-based people who could do the job and it had taken six months to convince a top Silicon Valley-based executive to move his family to Melbourne.
“He was signed on and ready to go and then the government came out with these proposed policy changes to their visa system and he just said ‘no, it’s too hard,’ and pulled the pin,” Mr Farquhar said.
I don’t have any problem with bringing in specific talent. But having an overly lax approach, which we have had, simply discourages local business investment. It is way past time that IT saw a fall in 457 visas. Even the NBN has been sucking in huge numbers of foreign workers on the cheap. What’s the point of that for the national interest when wages are already falling across the board?
The days of trickle down economics are over. If you want to preserve capitalism today then you need to accept the fact that the race to bottom for wages is a political economy disaster.
Instead of whining about ever so slightly lower immigration from a $100m harbour mansion that sees none of congestion fallout out West, Mr Farquhar should get on with investing more heavily in local talent.
