Without a response, the sector will shrink
The Federal Budget will help homeownership rates, but not the talent shortage within the tech industry, say industry experts.
Released on Tuesday night, the Budget expanded the New Home Guarantee scheme, with 50,000 places now available to assist eligible homebuyers with low deposits.
The budget also provided a cost-of-living relief package targeted at households grappling with rising living costs. There was also investment in the manufacturing sector, with funding to support apprenticeships, and funding for a new skills agreement, to expand and upskill the workforce, while small businesses stood to gain from investment in skills and training.
Acknowledging that saving a deposit was difficult, Property Investment Professionals of Australia (PIPA) chair Nicola McDougall (pictured above), said doubling of the New Home Guarantee scheme would help Australians who would otherwise struggle to buy their own home.
Read more: Federal budget draws mixed response
The role of home ownership in creating household wealth and security couldn’t be denied, she said – yet rising house prices prevented many people from achieving that goal.
“It’s especially pleasing to see the Family Home Guarantee for single parents expanded to 5,000 places every year until 2025 because these are the buyers who need assistance the most,” McDougall said.
“With rental markets critically undersupplied around the nation, helping single parents make the usually difficult transition from being a tenant to a homeowner will make a significant difference to their lives as well as to the lives of their children.”
Referring to research which showed that home ownership among 65-year-olds would fall from the current rate of 76% to about 57% by 2056, McDougall said the boosted schemes would ultimately improve the financial situation of thousands of homeowners.
Read more: Lenders back Budget housing affordability measures
PIPA member and founder of BFP Property Buyers Ben Plohl said the Budget’s focus on household cost-of-living pressures was the right move.
“The halving of the fuel excise for the next six months as well as the cost-of-living tax offset and the one-off cost of living payment will certainly help households struggling with higher prices for basic necessities,” Plohl said.
Summing up the budget, FinTech Australia CEO Andrew Porter (pictured), said after years of work with the federal government he was disappointed challenges within the financial technology (fintech) industry weren’t addressed.
A $38 million commitment to the rollout of the Consumer Data Right (CDR) under open banking, supporting sharing of financial data to third parties “wouldn’t go astray”, Porter said. Many within the industry were asking why solutions weren’t already in the market.
Newer fintechs could benefit from budget incentives for retraining, as could those building their e-invoicing capability, he said.
But the Budget was silent on the talent shortage, an issue he said needed to be acknowledged.
“Now with both parties' cards on the table, they have no immediate policy response to the tech talent shortage in Australia. Further training, and plans for retraining is admirable for the medium-term, but our sector will shrink and job growth will slow without an immediate response,” Porter said.
“The sector now has to assume that any changes regarding skilled talent visas are politically too tough for either party to enact going into an election. It’s a grim outcome for fintech and the broader sector.”
Paul Byrne, CEO of fintech Zai, said a “lack of policy assistance, or even recognition of the problem” made hiring staff to support development and launch of new products difficult in the short-term.
He said Zai, along with other start-up companies may be forced to look for talent offshore.
“We would like to see more be done to develop a larger hiring pool of Australian-based tech talent,” Byrne said. “Whether this is through overseas campaigns encouraging tech workers to relocate or expats to return. It’s pleasing to see more being done to train tech talent at a TAFE and university level but like most fast-growing businesses, we need to hire now, not in two years' time.”
Nigel Freeman-Fellowes, CEO of fintech Kanopi, said the industry was expecting the “bottleneck on tech talent” to be addressed by at least one point in the Budget.
He said the issue could be solved by streamlining the skilled visa process for tech workers, something that wasn’t mentioned among visa changes.
“It’s a shame as it leaves start-ups in a holding pattern until more local talent is trained - which could take years. Some start-ups simply won’t have the capital to hold out of it, so there is a real risk that a lack of action will cost future jobs,” Freeman-Fellowes said.
