El-Ansary Yasser

With today’s federal budget framed against the backdrop of an upcoming federal election campaign and a higher inflationary environment, the Australian Investment Council will be looking closely at how the Government plans to create a stronger economy that builds on the foundations of innovation, skills and talent, as well as trade and investment.

As the industry body for private capital investment, the Australian Investment Council would like to see initiatives included in the federal budget that accelerate our transition towards a more innovative and knowledge-based economy.

“The federal budget provides an opportunity to continue to build on the significant gains in technology and digitisation that have resulted from the lockdowns and challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years,” said Yasser El-Ansary, Chief Executive of the Australian Investment Council.

“All Australian businesses need to build a strong digital capability to increase their productivity and competitiveness in both domestic and international markets.

“This includes upgrading the NBN from FTTC and HFC to FTTP to support the ‘working from home’ economy and providing incentives like a simpler direct additional tax credit to encourage Australian companies to re-tool through investment in software and other digital capabilities,” Mr El-Ansary said.

The Australian Investment Council put forward recommendations in a federal budget submission which focus on regenerating growth across every sector of the Australian economy through new jobs, faster innovation, increases in productivity, and growing the pipeline of inbound foreign and domestic investment capital.

“These are recommendations that will ultimately drive transformational changes that will re-calibrate Australia onto a path of higher wages for workers, rising living standards, and  new investment opportunities that help us to better compete with similar jurisdictions around the world,” Mr El-Ansary said.

Employee share schemes

For many years, the Council has advocated for an employee share scheme framework that is more competitive with other jurisdictions.

According to Mr El-Ansary: “More than ever, Australia is competing with other countries for talent and skills in the innovation ecosystem.  Employee share schemes can be an important component for attracting and retaining staff  for start-up companies who are often faced with limited resources during their early stages of development despite their potential to grow into large and sustainable businesses.”

Skills and talent

Addressing skills shortages are amongst key priorities for the private capital sector as companies in the innovation economy are faced with skills and labour shortages which are needed to underpin their future growth.

“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.

“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.

Supporting manufacturing in Australia

“The Council supports government’s focus on advanced manufacturing in industries where we already are, or could be, world leaders and ‘going narrow and deep’ in developing them further,” Mr El-Ansary said.

“It is vitally important for our economic recovery and Australian jobs that our manufacturing capability can effectively and confidently grow and attract investment for the future. It is an important step towards supporting the rebuilding of business activity across the Australian economy and in sending a global message that Australia is open for business.”

The Australian Investment Council will be participating in tomorrow’s federal budget lock-up in Canberra on behalf of the private capital industry.

Read the Council’s 2022-23 Pre-Budget submission.

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