Productivity is currently the hot topic for a conversation on economic reform. Australia, like many other countries, has a serious problem with it. Our productivity hasn’t significantly increased for more than a decade (apart from a temporary spike during the pandemic).
Now Treasurer Jim Chalmers has named productivity as his priority for Labor’s second term; assistant minister Andrew Leigh, part of the government’s economic team, has had it inserted into his title; the Productivity Commission has put out 15 potential reform areas for discussion, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a roundtable to canvass the way ahead.
The roundtable appears to be a prime ministerial initiative. Announcing it at the National Press Club on Tuesday, Albanese made a point of saying he had asked Chalmers to convene it. Perhaps it’s a case of the prime minister emulating his forerunner Bob Hawke, with his penchant for summits, while Chalmers seeks to be a contemporary Keating, as he searches for reforms to promote.
It would be a major achievement if people were able to remember the second-term Albanese government for paving the way for a significant lift in Australia’s productivity. It would probably also be an economic and political miracle.
Let’s never knock a summit, but let’s not be taken in by the suggestion that the planned August meeting, involving employers, unions and the government, will mark some breakthrough moment. Business representatives are approaching it with a degree of cynicism; they saw the 2022 jobs and skills summit as preparing the ground for the new government to meet union demands.
Michele Grattan writing on the Conversation (link).
with so many posters bunging up new and resurrected threads bagging out the current Govt, its worth remembering that the preceding Govts worked very hard at suppressing productivity and wages growth.
last Lab term was a lesson in how to manage inflation, something the Morrison mob had preferred to hide and ignore. they caused no damage to the nation as they managed to prop up low income families suffering from cost of living crisis.
productivity has been a global problem for some time. its not exclusive to Aus...... but we might have done better during the Lib years if they hadn't been so damned incompetent and destructive.
now the Labs want a talk-fest. we declaim such initiatives because many previous such talk-fest have resulted in no change at all. hopefully this time will be more like the Hawke successes in changing how our nation works.
I have one serious reservation; that Albanese has ruled out IR changes. he has his own plan and doesn't want this disturbed. imo he's setting up for failure by this move. IR needs repair. the Enterprise Bargaining system has resulted in disempowerment of workers who are unable to negotiate the terms of their employment. its either accept the terms of go......
