What does it mean to be bold on the economy? |
Australia’s export mix is dangerously narrow. A mission-led industrial strategy is needed to build competitive advantage and lift productivity.
When the government is under pressure, Paul Keating used to say, “you have to flick the switch to vaudeville”.
It’s a great line but hardly an option for the Albanese government in the wake of tragedies at home and abroad. That said, the pressure remains to develop a bolder change narrative for Labor’s second term, if it is to justify a third, let alone beyond.
What do we mean by bold in this context? Simply that it’s not enough to tinker at the edges of the fundamental challenges facing Australia’s economy when we need to confront them head-on, without being swayed by powerful vested interests.
We know very well what the challenges are – stalled productivity with real wage stagnation, climate change and the massive task of energy transition and growing social inequalities holding us back as a modern progressive democracy.
We also know that old orthodoxies die hard and can stand in the way of new ideas and approaches. It’s hardly a surprise that while the rest of the world moves on, the generals here are fighting the last war, which in 1980s Australia was to internationalise an over-protected and under-performing economy.
The new war is to take whatever steps are necessary to transform Australia’s narrow, outdated trade and industrial........