CRAIG EMERSON
Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Trade and Tourism
SENATOR KATE LUNDY
Shadow Minister for Information Technology & Sport
The Howard Government is so embarrassed by revelations it recommended Australian businesses replace local information technology and software development jobs with workers in India, it is now trying to slide away from the plan.
Earlier this week, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer launched a report, India: new economy, old economy, which proposed in part that:
“Australian firms also can outsource or relocate their back office operations, taking advantage of India’s considerably lower wages in this area.”
Following public outrage about the proposal, the Howard government made a clumsy attempt to hide its embarrassment by instructing the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to issue a press release claiming it was all a ‘misunderstanding’.
But the Howard Government cannot explain away similar comments from Joe Hockey, the former Minister for Financial Services and Regulation. Mr Hockey, speaking recently at the launch of Satyam Computer Services, India’s fourth largest software exporter, stated:
We want to encourage Australian companies to move offshore.
Joe Hockey, Australian Financial Review, 2/11/01
It is a damning indictment of the Howard Government’s complete lack of a third-term agenda that it’s only message to local businesses thinking of investing in IT and software development is that they should move offshore and turn Australia into a branch office.
The Howard Government was warned last month by leading industry analysts, Gartner Asia Pacific, that “immediate action is required to address the issue of a lack of an export driven high-tech industry, or Australia runs the risk of becoming increasingly becoming irrelevant in the globalised, knowledge-based economy.”
By contrast Labor demonstrated through its policies a genuine commitment to invest in the skills necessary to attract and develop information technology capabilities in Australia.
New Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Trade and Tourism, Craig Emerson, and Shadow Minister for Information Technology and Sport, Senator Kate Lundy, will work together on further policy development to create Australian jobs in the IT and computer software industries.
Media contact: Simon Tatz on 6277 3334 or 0418 488 295
