An investment boom makes a recession less likely, but it complicates the RBA’s inflation task by competing for stretched worker and construction capacity.
We hope it’ll do more than steady the ship with politically safe incremental fixes that don’t address structural constraints weighing on productivity and growth.
The economy has sent the Reserve Bank an unambiguous message: it cannot take even mild demand stimulus without overheating.
Australia needs structural reform and a united push from business and government to lift productivity, tame price pressures and secure sustainable growth.
The top priority of the roundtable should be changes to the taxation mix to improve Australia’s competitiveness.
As the Reserve Bank cuts rates, we should also cut political resistance to affordable, well-targeted ideas. The productivity roundtable must not be wasted.
Bold reform comes with a heavy price tag and is harder when economic circumstances also command big spending
Australia needs a better tax system to boost productivity and growth. Both major parties should be talking with urgency about their plans for reform.
While the chances of a rate cut in February are very high, pausing a little longer would be a worthy reflection of the current uncertain environment.
The RBA’s latest financial stability review suggests businesses are holding up pretty well. But appearances can be deceiving.
Redesigning the tax system against the principles of fairness, efficiency, sustainability and coherence would deliver us all with an economic dividend.
Everybody wants to know if interest rates are going to come down this year. The best way to find out is by challenging economists’ assumptions.
Australia’s treasurers could do more to help the Reserve Bank to navigate the narrow path to a soft landing and reduce the need for further interest rate increases.
We can’t pretend national security risks and the need to reduce our carbon emissions don’t exist. But nor can this small, open economy give up on the free flow of goods, services, capital, technology, ideas, payments and people.
This structural budget deficit could be closed by reforms that enable governments and businesses to do more with less.
The Reserve Bank will have to go much harder to rein in inflation.
