StartupAUS, Australia’s peak national advocacy group for startups, has welcomed the return of the Morrison Government.
StartupAUS CEO Alex McCauley says Australia can now look forward to a period of political stability which will have flow-on benefits into tech and startup investment and growth.
“During the course of the election campaign the Prime Minister made it clear that Australia's continued economic prosperity was his principal focus,” said McCauley.
“Over the next few years, that will rely more than ever on our ability to create high value global companies.
“Australia’s tech sector will have a large part to play here, with breakthrough global businesses such as Atlassian, Canva, Wisetech Global, Airwallex, Envato, Deputy, Afterpay, CultureAmp and Aconex all demonstrating that multi-billion dollar Australian technology companies are a new reality.”
Mr McCauley said there is much hard work still to be done to get the settings right to enable more Australian tech companies to become global successes.
“But we are optimistic about the opportunity now to clearly articulate the important role technology will play in Australia’s future prosperity.
Champion of high growth entrepreneurship
“This Prime Minister has been an active champion of high growth entrepreneurship. He was Treasurer at the time of the government’s $1.1 billion National Innovation and Science Agenda, and as Treasurer personally supported a range of policy proposals to grow the fintech sector.
“With a renewed mandate, and a focus on a strong economy, we look forward to his continued support for entrepreneurs.”
McCauley says StartupAUS is looking forward to continuing to work with the government to help Australian startups access the best talent in the world, through the Global Talent Scheme.
“The Coalition’s policies since 2015 have seen the introduction of generous tax incentives for angel and venture capital investors,” he said.
This includes a dedicated startup stream of the skilled migrant visa, the introduction of an entrepreneur visa, a global network of startup landing pads, significant funding support for incubators and accelerators and the establishment of a national space agency.
“Of course, there's a lot of work still to be done, so we look forward to sitting down with the new team to get stuck into it,” McCauley said.
