You're underestimating the apathy we're talking about here. It's not a religious issue, so churches won't mobilise. The tech companies aren't going to cry if the labour pool loses Australians. And they aren't going to make a lot of noise on what might be even a slightly polarising issue for our sake.
Of course the tech companies won't. But I am sure the Australian tech community will feel quite angered that prospects of employability have greatly diminished or been hampered as result of public officials passing laws with zero effort to consult. And then if that anger can be directed to the polls you will have something that will attach a cost to legislators and that is all you need.
if they don't start making noise soon they better get used to operating environment of extremely heavy handed and reactionary legislation governing them ... no industry should want to be so politically vulnerable that in 5 days a parliament feels they can pass such imposing legislation without even effort to consult.
worse case scenarios politicans and major players in tech both feeel that they have reached point of growth that seeking comfortable protective and highly regulated legislative frameowrk to stem threat of competition from smaller entrants is beneficial and increase cost of entry new participants by such measures as this might be in self-interest. this is most dangerous scenario and why legislation that even let's assume has nothing but best intentions needs to be closely scrutinized and thorough industry and broader community consultation is a must.
The Australian tech community will just leave. The ones that stay here are either the sentimental ones or the stupid ones already. I know I've had much better offers from overseas that I have ever gotten here and I will more than likely be taking one of them in the next few years.
Are you not afraid that Australian laws will affect your employability even overseas? I am not sure if Australian citizens can be forced to comply with that anti-encryption legislation when they live outside of Australia but the insecurity itself could motivate some(?) companies to avoid employing Australian citizens. Can you estimate the impact?
One a person leaves a country, they are not under the jurisdiction of the laws of that country in any meaningful way. If he leaves Oz for, say, Denmark, Australian law has zero effect on him other than those agreed upon diplomatic agreements between said countries. Any tech laws he may have been under in Oz have zero bearing on him in Denmark. The Oz government would be risking a throttling if they tried to get him to act as a "spy" and insert bad code into a product in Denmark. At that point, he could approach the Danish government, ask for asylum, and it would likely be granted.
I left Fastmail over the recent Oz decision with encryption. I was a paying customer since 2002. It pained me horribly to leave, but I had no choice over principle.
Other than diplomatic norms, once a person leaves a country, he is bound by the laws of the receiving country. I base this on common knowledge and also having lived in 5 countries myself.
Australia and New Zealand are rapidly becoming draconian. I have friends in both countries. They are thinking of leaving because of all of this. The entire knee-jerk reaction to guns in NZ is but the latest in a long line of stupidities the Kiwi and Aussie governments have been up to. For example, in NSW, if you have a knife painted green, you can go to jail because it's a "zombie knife". Think I'm joking? Look it up. The last "free" state in Oz is QLD. The rest of them are up to their necks in draconian stupidity.
The problem is that few people can leave a clean slate. If one's parents or other relatives remain in the country, not being able to visit them there is very vexing.
If Australians are legally obliged to implement back-doors on behalf of the Australian government and not mention it to their employer, why would any of these tech companies want you?
Because Australia is part of the 5 eyes. Any backdoor put in place would have been blessed by some three letter agency from the US already. Any firm that can pay the wages I expect will have a government contract and lawyers on staff who understand how this works.
don't forget it's not just the workers too it's the end users