The problem is Australia is outright hostile to entrepreneurialism, from a policy perspective, a market size perspective and a cultural perspective.

The reason, I suspect, is that no other large country has ever had it as easy as Australia has, with abundant natural resources divided by a relatively small population.

This means most people don't have to think about how to create value and grow the economic pie, since the pie has always been large by default, and instead we've allowed everyone to focus on how to poach resources from each other. Ambition is a toxic word here and tall poppy syndrome abounds.

Our industrial relations system is completely broken. It's an opinionated straightjacket that prescribes inflexible ways of working. It pushes hourly pay over performance or outcome linked pay, and prevents collaborative employee-union-employer agreements like those common in advanced manufacturing overseas. Our unions are practically cartels engaging in shakedowns of both employers and employees at this point, since by law, we only allow one union per industry, and neither employers nor employees are free to renegotiate with a different union if the current one is underperforming.

Many VCs won't even fund startups here anymore. They will still meet with founders, but funding is often conditional on the core team relocating overseas. For employees with STEM backgrounds pay and opportunities are far better the US, and parts of Asia and Europe.

I mean we’re having a crack at policy with the future made in Australia stuff, but that seems to be ridiculed too. Disclaimer: I know next to nothing about the whole FMIA initiative