For years, Australia's technology leaders have been raising concerns about the lack of tech skills coming out of universities, and bemoaning a lack of focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects. Until now, neither of the two main political parties has done anything to actually change things.

STEM boost overdue

While discourse around the topic of young people studying technology-related topics has often focused on an image problem for the sector – where it can be portrayed as nerdy and leading to a career dead-end fixing computers for other people to do the real work – nobody has previously proposed a viable financial kick up the backside to get students into the courses we need them to study.

It is likely that the image of tech as a career for the socially inadequate is already dying a natural death among a generation of adults who were born around 1997 – a year when Microsoft had already become the world's most valuable company and kids were communicating without their parents' knowledge online via AOL Instant Messenger.

With financial inducements to study STEM floated on Thursday night, Mr Shorten has given real-world reasons for students – and their parents – to have confidence and optimism that choosing to develop tech expertise is a step in the right direction.

Phil Coorey runs through the proposals here, and having spoken with tech industry figures over the last decade in Australia, it is hard to find fault with the ideas.

Writing off the HECS debts for 100,000 students who complete degrees in a STEM speciality over the next five years, and then creating scholarships to encourage STEM graduates to become teachers, shows foresight from a political leader – something that has been sorely missing in recent memory.

Coding in schools a no-brainer


Adding computer coding to the national curriculum is also such a logical thing to do that it shouldn't warrant applause – but it does, given its continued exclusion. Also, increasing the amount spent on research and development to 3 per cent of GDP in the next decade should be music to the ears of intelligent Australians, who have been horrified by the country's apparent lurch away from scientific appreciation in recent times.

Others will argue that the measures announced by Mr Shorten do little to address the need to reduce government spending, but I dare any politician from either side to claim that having a larger supply of tech expert graduates is not going to pay off in spades in future decades.

Of course, the Opposition Leader did little to spell out how the ideas will be paid for, but, as a signal of intent, it was a hugely important speech, made all the more refreshing after years of policy-free opposition rhetoric.

The government has made some positive moves to position itself as a friend to the "new economy" in its current term, but the challenge has now been laid down by Labor for it to further raise its game. It has upped the ante and there is now daylight between the two parties on a crucial policy for the future.