ACS still beating digital economy drum in wake of budget

Peter Dinham
Wednesday, 13 May 2009 17:56

IT Industry - Market

Denham says the ACS welcomes the higher education initiatives announced yesterday in response to the Bradley Review, but she stresses that the government must address the need to attract more students into ICT and science disciplines.
 
“Australia will continue to face an ongoing skills demand within the ICT area. We would like to see some investment in ICT skills foresighting to make sure the students are studying the skills that are going to be needed by our industry over the next 10 years. In a student demand driven system for higher education, we need to ensure we don’t end up with a mismatch between student demand for courses and the skills being demanded by industry.”

While the ACS doesn’t think the government has gone far enough, by a long shot, on the issue of the digitial economy, it does, nevertheless, welcome the introduction of small business tax concessions for investment in new capital items, such as computer hardware.
 
Denham says, however, that the ACS would like to see consideration given to extending these incentives beyond 2009 with a “focus around Australian owned products and services including software and ICT services,” which would provide a means of “helping to power Australia’s economic recovery and boost employment for ICT professionals.”

Budget initiatives identified by the ACS as relevant to the Australian ICT sector, and positive news for the industry, include the $80 million rural and regional NBN initiative, small business tax breaks with incentives to invest in capital items such as computer hardware, the $10 million small business online program, new R&D tax credit, $185.5 million in funding for NICTA, and establishment of a $196.1 million Commonwealth Commercialisation Institute to develop a radical new approach to commercialising the best Australian research.

Overall, the budget, according to Denham, has delivered “some solid opportunities for the ICT sector – particularly in a challenging economic environment,” and, she says, the ACS “look forward to a continued conversation around ICT issues in the coming year as our economy builds towards a recovery.