There are not enough Australians available to maintain our online economy and immigration rules should be loosened to allow companies to import web workers, the boss of one of the country's biggest tech companies says.
REA Group chief executive Tracey Fellows said Australia is "tapped out" of computer science graduates, meaning the "biggest inhibitor" to the company's growth was accessing talent to engineer and maintain its websites, including realestate.com.au.
For example, Ms Fellows said REA - which is 61 per cent owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation - was able to "very easily" find 100 developers for its Chinese offshoot. Whereas finding five web designers in Australia took "months of work", she said. 
Ms Fellows praised the free-trade agreements recently struck with China, Japan and Korea, but said the government needed to improve labour mobility throughout the Asian region to help companies such as REA prosper.
"Our business is entirely an IP [intellectual property] business, in that it is entirely human-capital based," she said at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) luncheon in Melbourne on Monday.
"The promise of the FTA is it enables ??? fences around countries to come down. [But] from the point of view of an Australian company, one of the biggest challenges we face is access to skills. We are almost tapped out in being able to find the skilled resources that we need."
"And if we can't get the skills here in Australia ??? we will go to other places and do it there."
Despite technology companies being at the centre of the digital revolution with strong growth prospects, Ms Fellows said computer science and engineering "for whatever reason" were not appealing career options for local students.
But she said in China those jobs were highly regarded and its universities were helping meet the demand.
"And we are a well-recognised brand. We are a well-recognised employer of choice that has exciting and interesting work that people like to do and that pays well.
"It's just supply and demand. Demand far exceeds supply. So if you have children, especially girls, make sure they do technology at school."
Ms Fellows' comments came after CEDA chief executive Stephen Martin said the government would expand the labour mobility agreement it shares with New Zealand to countries in Asia.
Professor Martin said Australia had been "educating the best and brightest of Asia's developing economies" for the past 50 years. He said those students have now become researchers, policy decision-makers and business leaders in their respective home countries, and Australia should be able to tap into that talent.
"Just as the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangements enabled free movement of workers and expanded the pool of skills available between Australia and New Zealand, Australia could benefit from actively seeking the free mobility of labour between other appropriate countries," Professor Martin said.
"Obviously, Australia would need to proceed with caution but this type of agreement does have potential to deliver benefits."
He said Singapore should be the first country that Australia explore a freer labour mobility deal with, given its close proximity and role as a regional hub.
Under the China Australia Free Trade Agreement, an Australian company that has a contract with a Chinese company to supply a service in Australia can use Chinese workers.
In the absence of a Chinese contract, a company can access 457 visas to fill labour shortages after it has proved that it cannot find Australian workers to do the job.