(Full disclosure: I left 20 years ago)
But when you look at stuff like this (http://i.imgur.com/g7a9QDL.png), it makes you realise that there's no chance of generating a start-up culture in Australia (except maybe in the financial sector, especially if the business has something to do with property loans).
I've lived in London for 10 years, and my partner is Australian. We've considered moving to Australia recently, so the above is from my research.
Things have been rapidly changing too with the young generation. Smart people are skipping the investment banks for startups because they see the opportunity.
There are only 23 million odd Australians, but there is well north of $2 trillion AUD in our superannuation accounts.
Assuming they applied 0.5% of that towards VC, you'd be looking at $10bn AUD of available capital. At least one order of magnitude more than is currently present.
Also, last I checked, stock-based comp in Australia is tax-disadvantageous. I can't recall if it was FBT or something else.
If simple well understood businesses (dig up rocks or buy land and build) can return > 10% YoY, why would any intelligent investor poor money into an asset class that has underperformed that in the same period?
Exploration, drilling, construction, exploitation. The early stages cost millions and often lead to failure, with the occasional profitable case and rare super-profitable discoveries. Scaling up costs major capital, after which, prices allowing, a mine can be a cash cow.
I remember when I worked at a startup the choice when I got stock options was - pay the tax up front based on the current strike price value - or pay a higher tax when you exercise them and make a profit. If you take the first choice then you'll need to do a lot of paper work to get that money back should the company fail.