Rhetoric around 457 visa changes ‘is risking a tech brain drain’

Atlassian boss Mike Cannon-Brookes says Australia is running the risk of a tech brain drain.

Atlassian boss Mike Cannon-Brookes says Australia is running the risk of a tech brain drain, praising the government’s 457 visa ­revamp but warning that the bombast around it was having ­severe consequences.

“This rhetoric around Australia being an inclusive country is dangerously trending in the wrong direction,” Mr Cannon-Brookes said yesterday.

“The tech industry is really trying to be big on inclusiveness and diversity, and those are the ­exactly right things for us to be doing as an industry, but governments are trending away from that.

“It’s an us-versus-them mentality, and it’s dangerous. It hurts our ability to attract talent, and you’ll have technology companies, and large businesses, choosing to put jobs elsewhere. That’s a dangerous slippery slope.”

The co-chief executive, who serves as an adjunct professor at the University of NSW, said Australia had amazing computer science programs in the universities but struggled to keep graduates in the country.

“Amazon, Google and Microsoft are all in the US, and when you limit immigration of ­experienced technology workers to grow the tech industry locally, you are ­increasing the brain drain of our best graduates,” Mr Cannon-Brookes said.

“I don’t think that loop is really understood by a lot of people — ultimately that will hurt a huge number of jobs in the country.”

Mr Cannon-Brookes said ­Atlassian would likely already comply with the government’s mooted 457 changes, given the software company runs police checks, asks for a minimum level of work experience and does local market testing.

He called the changes “sensible” but said the rhetoric around them was reprehensible.

“The anti-immigration tone of these changes has already been damaging internally for us — the impact has been large,” he said.

“A whole lot of people in our hiring pipeline are saying maybe Australia is not the right place for me to go. The rhetoric around these changes may serve political gains internally — I guess that’s the trade-off these people are making.”

Mr Cannon-Brookes, who has an estimated net worth of about $2 billion, said knowledge workers had an extremely portable skillset and could effectively work anywhere, meaning softer factors like lifestyle, environment and safety become critical factors for a country looking to bolster its talent.

“We have all that stuff in ­spades, so then the employees start asking things like ‘Do I feel like I’m wanted, do I feel like my contribution is being valued?’ This tone really hurts.”

He called on Malcolm Turnbull to give more clarity on the 457 visas changes.

“We need to know what exactly is changing; the detail at this stage is scant. These changes seem to have been rushed through. But I would say we’re supportive of these new restrictions, given as a company we’re doing all these things already.”

Earlier this week, the entrepreneur hit out at apparent criticism of him by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton.

“Did I just get trolled by a government minister for being un-Australian?” he tweeted.

“This bullshit makes me mad.”

There are currently 81,298 workers on 457 visas, and Atlassian is understood to have about 250 workers on 457s.