The economy that redesigns itself

The List – Australia’s Richest 250, published on Friday, is a perch for observing big shifts in our economy and the jobs of the future. The biggest mover on the List for 2022 is a software company, Canva, that didn’t exist 10 years ago. This graphic design platform has schoolkids and jobseekers among the 60 million monthly users of its free version, while firms such as Intel and Zoom feature among its 500,000 paying team users.

Sociologist Daniel Bell declared “the coming of the post-industrial society” way back in 1976. The service sector does bulk large in modern economies. In the 1980s and ’90s we had mazelike globalisation of supply chains. Out of that period emerged the internet and e-commerce, which have reshaped everything from retail and dating to politics. But nobody predicted how virtual our lives would become as Covid-19 locked us into video conferences and streaming entertainment. Making remote visual connections all over the world is what Canva enables. It’s a reminder that the perceived isolation of Australia and its small market – factors often said to count against capital-raising for homegrown projects – can be overcome. Canva managed it. On paper, this pixel-wrangling business is worth more than Woolworths with its chains of real-world stores or Rio Tinto with its vast mines. We should expect more surprises ahead in this era of digitalised economic globalisation.

The Tech Council of Australia is no doubt correct that we don’t have the best skill and job settings to take advantage of the kind of opportunities seized by a Canva or an Atlassian. The task for government is to tailor a training and education system that turns out locals equipped for entry-level jobs with real prospects, while fine-tuning skilled migration for key specialist roles. And, like other sectors, tech will benefit from low-drag regulations and a competitive tax regime.

It’s worth remembering that tech, for all its talk of cloud computing, still needs a firm foundation in minerals, resources and energy. Iron ore magnate Gina Rinehart tops this year’s Rich List, and Andrew Forrest, at the No. 2 spot, is seeking to parlay his mining company into a green-energy force. Tech, resources and energy are interdependent and all are crucial given our challenging strategic outlook. Many broken supply chains will be repaired, but we must give urgent attention to sovereign manufacturing capacity. One obvious sector is health and medical, where Australia’s basic science has long been world class. This is also a tech area (think bioinformatics and e-health) and a manufacturing platform. Thursday brought some good news on this front with Scott Morrison announcing a deal with US pharma company Moderna to make mRNA vaccines in Melbourne. Now that’s a shot in the arm.