Yasser El-Ansary

Restoring borders to pre-pandemic settings and maintaining a flow of migration to fill jobs and skills gaps are among recommendations in the Australian Investment Council’s 2022-23 Pre-Budget submission.

“Australia’s economy relies on a dependable and steady flow of non-citizen skilled migrants, tourists and students to drive economic growth, consumer spending and job creation so it is critical that visas and skills lists focus on expediting immigration that will fill skills and jobs gaps where they are most needed,” said Yasser El-Ansary, Chief Executive of the Australian Investment Council. 

“Introducing visas for foreign students who graduate from Australian universities in disciplines where there are skills shortages and which allow them to stay and work in Australia, would make a meaningful contribution to the development of Australia’s post-pandemic knowledge-based economy,” Mr El-Ansary said.

Growing digital capability is another policy priority in the Council’s submission.

 “All Australian businesses need to build a strong digital capability to increase their productivity and competitiveness in both domestic and international markets. We are recommending a simpler direct additional tax credit is introduced to enable Australian companies to retool through investment in software and other digital capabilities,” Mr El-Ansary said.

Recommendations put forward in the Australian Investment Council’s submission focus on regenerating growth across every sector of the Australian economy through creating jobs, driving innovation, increasing productivity and maintaining a stable flow of foreign and domestic investment capital.

Key recommendations in the Council’s submission are outlined below.

Ensure a stable future economy

• Maintain housing pricing growth that is sustainable and in line with real wages growth.
• Assist first home owners bridge the funding gap on their first home deposits.
• Work with State Governments to identify impediments to new housing creation and on targeted programs which don’t place additional pressure on existing housing prices.

Keep borders open

• Consider the flow of non-citizen skilled migrants, tourists and students as critical to Australia’s economic recovery and take steps to restore Australia’s border controls to pre-pandemic settings as soon as possible.
• Extend visas for foreign students who graduate from Australian universities in disciplines where there are skills shortages, allowing them to stay and work in Australia to build a pipeline for a new, knowledge-based economy.

Grow digital capability

• Introduce a simpler direct additional tax credit to enable Australian companies to retool by investing in software and other digital capabilities.
• Support the working from home economy through investment into further NBN upgrading of premises from FTTC and HFC to FTTN.

Support innovation

• Introduce matching grants for R&D to boost innovation and growth.
• Implement a ’gold standard’ patent box to support the innovation economy.
• Continue to work with industry and government to develop closer collaboration between industry and universities to accelerate research commercialisation.
• Fast-track the commitment outlined in the Statement of Principles for Australian Innovation Precincts, Report recommendations to create a future where innovation precincts are an integral part of the broader national innovation system by 2030.

Maintain a steady flow of investment capital

• Fast-track the implementation of the new Limited Partnership Collective Investment Vehicle regime as the main outstanding component of a globally competitive fund vehicle regime.
• Consider recommendations for the improvement of the operation of the Foreign Investment Review Board approval regime to enhance decision turn-around times.
• improve existing VCLP and ESVCLP vehicles – The Council recommends the technical and interpretative issues in the ESVCLP and VCLP regimes be adopted and implemented as a priority.
• Work with industry to reduce the uncertainties in the tax treatment of private capital investment into Australian businesses.

Remove tax inefficiencies

• Consider further reductions to the Australian corporate and individual tax rates in line with global trends and in order to attract talent to Australia.
• Work with State and Territory governments to remove inefficient taxes such as payroll tax and stamp duty.

Build better retirement outcomes

• Provide ASIC with a mandate to conduct a post implementation review of the RG97 regime to enable any market-facing issues to be identified and resolved.

Work towards Net-Zero

• Reduce red tape for businesses investing in new technologies to support the transition to clean energy.
• support clean energy initiatives for businesses and households.

Secure supply chains

• Continue to invest into national infrastructure to reduce bottlenecks and ensure goods can flow through domestic ports, rail and road networks safely, quickly and efficiently.
• Fast-track digital transformation to gain more visibility over supply chain data.
• Invest in Australian manufacturing and component sourcing capability in essential products which may be susceptible to global supply chain disruption.

Protect the economy

• Consider a tax credit or instant asset write-off for expenditure on enhancing cyber-security capability.

Preparing for future pandemics and disruption

• Create a new Commonwealth agency to specifically deal with future human biohazards, similar to the US Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention, to provide a uniform approach across the country, and to provide national tracking and tracing capability for infections.
• Build additional, dedicated quarantine facilities in close proximity to all major international airports and health facilities to deal with any future variants of COVID19 or any other infectious diseases that may emerge in the future.

Read the full submission. 

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