Election 2022: ‘We’re an enabler of a digital revolution’, says Josh Frydenberg

Josh Frydenberg says the government is ‘acting as an enabler’ of a digital revolution that accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. Picture: Nikki Short

Josh Frydenberg says the government is “acting as an enabler” of a digital revolution that accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Treasurer will tell The Australian’s E-Commerce Summit on Thursday that the pandemic caused “businesses to rapidly accelerate the technological transformation”.

“As many studies have found, during the pandemic virtually every business adopted new technologies to improve their business continuity and operations,” he will say. “More than 60 per cent of Australian businesses used videoconferencing, which became a vital collaboration tool for businesses to keep in touch with their staff and keep their businesses running.

WATCH: You can join The Australian’s E-Commerce Summit live stream from 9am on Thursday here.

“The online presence of Australian firms increased by as much as 31 per cent. We saw the same amount of digital growth in one year as had been achieved in the previous 10 years.”

Mr Frydenberg will say a key driver of Australia’s competitiveness “will be determined by our ability to embrace this disruption and capitalise on it”.

“In last year’s budget, we launched our Digital Economy Strategy … to drive Australia’s future prosperity as we emerge from the challenges of the pandemic,” he will say. “It is a strategy we have backed with over $3.5bn worth of investments across more than 60 digital initiatives.”

He will say the government was “creating the conditions necessary for the physical economy to continue to transition into the digital – we’ve invested over $400m in digital IDs to improve online access to government services and payments. We are also introducing the most significant reforms to Australia’s payments system in more than 25 years. Digital wallets, buy now pay later and cryptocurrency are fast becoming the new norm.

“Our reforms will improve regulatory certainty for busi­nesses, better protect consumers and investors and support ­competition.”