The Federal Treasurer’s economic reform roundtable needed a wider range of voices, including those representing lower income Australians. More seats at the roundtable and a bigger table!
The theme should have centred on ‘made in Australia’ with sessions on ‘designed in Australia’ and ‘marketed in Australia’.
The government is looking for new ideas to stimulate the economy to add to its policies, and for support for any new measures it can introduce in this term or in the next government. The key sessions were on productivity, business resilience and budget sustainability, but tax changes were off the table.
As expected, the big end of town was at the productivity session and seem satisfied, while local government was excluded.
While there has been plenty of focus on AI, it remains doubtful that it is the productivity saviour it’s being made out to be. What’s most likely is that AI-enabled automation will hasten the shift of the nation’s economic productive capacity away from salaried Australia and towards capital. While aggregate GDP may benefit, the benefits will only increasingly go to the top few %.
The promised reforms of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act are unlikely to benefit the environment. Interestingly, the road user charge will be on kms not emissions, or the size of cars now on the roads.
Tackling the housing supply will not solve housing affordability if it happens that each new dwelling for sale is at over $1 million. New houses are no use if they will be purchased by investors as their 2nd 3rd or 4th-plus home and put up on AirBnB for tourists.
The government should doubt the ‘supply-demand-price’ relationship regarding housing and listen more to the affordability sector.
Those controlling the marketplace seem the keenest to see home prices increase. Thousands of homes are kept vacant in our suburbs. Subsidy and handout programs by governments to help buyers and renters, while politically appealing, serve to keep purchase prices high. Some Councils report that many Planning Permits issued are not developed.
Ref: https://treasury.gov.au/review/economic-reform-roundtable
