The Australian Financial Review’s 2023 Business Summit carried the theme of “crunch time for prosperity” as the inflation outbreak and rising interest rates squeezed household budgets. The urgent proposition of the Aspiration, Growth and Security theme of the 2024 Business Summit is that, as inflation returns toward target, political and business leadership needs to focus on Australia’s post-pandemic era.

That requires aspiration to be restored at the centre of the nation’s politics to achieve the growth and prosperity needed to secure the nation’s place in a more threatening world.