News Digest

Australia seeks ‘ideas boom’ with tax breaks and visa boosts

Australia will introduce an entrepreneur visa and offer tax breaks for start-ups, the government said on Monday as it tries to unleash an “ideas boom” to move the economy away from dependence on mining. Launching a signature Aus$1.1 billion (US$806 million) four-year innovation agenda, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Australia needed a “dynamic, 21st century economy” underpinned by creativity". Australia has enjoyed more than 20 years of economic growth, but an unprecedented mining investment boom is now fading, commodity prices are dropping and government revenues are falling.

This is all about unleashing the ideas boom. Unlike a mining boom, it is a boom that can continue forever.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull

Turnbull, a tech-savvy former businessman who became prime minister in September after beating his conservative Liberal Party colleague Tony Abbott in an internal ballot, said innovation was crucial to the next wave of prosperity. Australia lagged in terms of commercialising ideas, consistently ranking last or second last among OECD countries for business-research collaboration, he said, meaning a big cultural change was needed to turn things around. To help fix this, new tax breaks for early-stage investors in start-ups will be offered, giving them a 20 per cent non-refundable tax offset based on the size of their investment, as well as a capital gains tax exemption.

We understand that sometimes entrepreneurs will fail several times before they succeed - and will usually learn more from failure than from success.

Treasurer Scott Morrison