The federal government has rightly identified that improving productivity, building economic resilience, and strengthening budget sustainability will be critical to Australia’s long-term prosperity.
Productivity growth is the key to raising our living standards in the long term. While the federal government doesn’t hold all the levers, it can strengthen the foundations: a competitive economy, a well-functioning labour market, the conditions for people to flourish (housing, health, education, and social cohesion), and the right infrastructure, tax, and regulatory settings.
This submission aims to focus attention on three major economic reform opportunities where the 2025 Economic Reform Roundtable could make substantive progress:
1. Tax reform to improve the efficiency of Australia’s tax system and strengthen budget sustainability.
2. Reducing barriers to work to ease workforce pressures and maximise our talent pool.
3. Better infrastructure, including more housing, to meet our urgent housing needs, support the economic transformation to net-zero, and better target public spending.
Grattan Institute’s Orange Book 2025 identifies a wide range of policy reforms to boost economic growth, tackle the structural budget problem, improve health and education, make housing more affordable, reduce emissions, more sustainably meet the needs of an ageing population, and strengthen our political institutions.