Unproductive summit to fix no productivity

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The Department of Redundancy Department is Albo’s core portfolio. From The Australian.

Business leaders will push for ­holistic tax reform, cuts to red tape and faster approvals for major projects as Anthony Albanese lays the groundwork for a second-term economic agenda by holding a productivity roundtable in Canberra months after his thumping election victory.

With the government being urged to address the structural budget deficit and low productivity growth, the Prime Minister on Tuesday said he would try to gain the “broadest possible base of support” for economic reform in the August meetings with leaders from the government, unions, business and community groups.

But Mr Albanese – who declared “not every challenge can be solved by government stepping back” despite vowing to cut red tape – did not commit to inviting leading economists who have been pushing for tax and regulatory reforms that can bolster productivity and economic growth.

Albo and Chicken Chalmers are proven policy vacuums: backroom politicians who have been promoted above their abilities.

They do not know or look for real answers to real problems. They look for cover from solutions while paying off interests.

We know what is wrong with Australian productivity. It has been explained again and again.

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It is largely four factors.

First, Australia’s stupid immigration-led labour market expansion growth model is intrinsically capital-shallowing. It grows population but chokes living standards as everything is crushloaded. When public investment tries to keep up, it is only running on the spot and crowds out more productive private activity.

Second, oligopolies don’t invest in anything other than political donations to preserve monopoly pricing.

Third, the tax code is a wreck of corruption, taxing effort over assets and waste.

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Fourth, incredibly expensive energy.

The entire thing is a productivity-eating machine, and so we have none.

Which one of the choked cogs in the machine will be cleared by the Unproductive Summit with business?

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  • Cheap foreign labour? No.
  • Monopoly pricing power. No.
  • Tax codes that boost share prices over investment? No.
  • Breaking of the gas cartel? No.

As in the case of the Unproductivity Commission and its weak and woke leadership these days, this summit is just another waste of time.

Although it could be a stalking horse for a corporate tax cut to pay off the interests.

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There is no problem that Canberra can’t make worse!

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.