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Productivity

Yesterday

Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers have faced growing opposition for several elements of the proposed superannuation tax changes.

Chalmers urged to overhaul CGT discount on housing

Labor for Housing says savings from reforming CGT could be used to scrap GST on goods and services used to build, maintain and manage state public housing.

The jury is out on whether AI is making our brains weaker.

Is AI making you stupid?

Access to generative AI can certainly lighten the mental load but the impressive short-term gains it affords may come with a hidden cost.

How many AI agents does it take to change a smart bulb?

Australia must regulate AI for productivity growth, not just for risk

What’s needed now is a policy framework that empowers markets while safeguarding customers. One that encourages innovation, rather than simply fearing disruption.

This Month

Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth

Penalty rate push undermines productivity summit

A bill enshrining penalty rates in law will be among the first through parliament next week, but is at odds with the government’s productivity goals.

Iron ore prices have been more resilient than expected.

Big miners fear tax increase from Chalmers’ roundtable

Resources companies are nervous that next month’s meeting with business, unions and policymakers will target mining and energy to pay for cutting other taxes.

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Ongoing regulatory uncertainty risks stifling AI adopting and strangling innovation for companies.

Chalmers bets on AI to revive stagnant economy

It’s imperative that informed voices in the tech industry play a role in advocating for policies that can boost investment, infrastructure and deployment.

Who’s invited to Chalmers’ economic reform roundtable

Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ economic reform roundtable next month will help set the government’s agenda. Here’s a full list of who’s known to be invited.

By 2035, data centers are projected to account for 8.6 per cent of all US electricity demand, more than double their 3.5 per cent share today, according to data from Bloomberg NEF.

AI revolution is Lucky Jim’s chance to boost public sector productivity

The roundtable is a chance for Australia to pick a side between leaders making the most of the technology and those that have effectively banned it.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock have a fight on their hands.

Roundtable screams of Chalmers’ style, but where’s the substance?

The treasurer is pushing big ideas and expectations for his economic talkfest in August. The practical results are much less certain.

With recent news that the Treasury believes the government’s ambitious 1.2 million homes target won’t be met, the clear solution is to let the market deliver housing to meet community needs.

The 3 intergenerational challenges Chalmers’ roundtable must fix

If the government wants true long-term productivity gains, it can look to three areas that happen to be where the intergenerational compact is most broken.

Minister for Industrial Relations Murray Watt.

The roundtable needs to be Labor’s ‘Nixon in China’ IR moment

Labor needs to challenge its policy and political orthodoxies on workplace regulation to fix the nation’s economic malaise.

Dr Henry caring for wildlife at his home in 2010.

Ken Henry’s not calm, he’s seething. And with good reason

For a bloke whose every utterance on tax is regarded as holy writ, Ken Henry is equally dismissed by many of those same economic adherents  as “a wombat lover”.

Cochlear CEO Dig Howitt wants Treasurer Jim Chalmers to drop the threshold on the R&D tax incentive.

Cochlear CEO calls for tax shake-up to boost R&D

Cochlear chief executive Dig Howitt has urged the government to abolish the $150 million expenditure threshold to boost business innovation and investment. 

Ken Henry spoke at the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.

Climate trigger ‘should be considered’ for major projects

In the absence of a carbon tax, new project approvals should be assessed on their impact on the climate, says Ken Henry.

There can be nothing Jim Chalmers will hear next month that he could not have learned from company reports and a friendly meeting with the ACTU. But Labor has learnt the power of consensus.

Chalmers’ reform summit will be 3 days of nothingness

The meeting will end in the usual whimper with a fleeting sideways glance at productivity, where business groups have already capitulated.

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Ken Henry says you should be half-a-million dollars richer

Australians have lost $500k in pay rises over the past 25 years because of the economy’s abysmal productivity, says former Treasury boss Ken Henry.

Prime Minister Anthony Anthony Albanese speaks at the Shanghai High Level Business Lunch held at the Peace Hotel in Shanghai on July 14, 2025.

Bloated government clashes with Labor’s business-led growth hopes

Unless there is a fundamental mindset shift by Labor, the private sector will remain stuck in the doldrums, and we will retain an inflated, government-led economy.

Ken Henry says fixing our environmental laws will fix our productivity.

Ken Henry’s top reform: the environment, not tax

Revamping Australia’s broken environment laws will do more for our ailing productivity than tax reform, the former Treasury secretary says.

CSL chairman Brian McNamee.

Yoghurt’s tax-free, unless it’s frozen: Calls grow to fix the GST

CSL chairman Brian McNamee says myriad carve-outs mean “half the economy” isn’t captured, while Woolworths says compliance is a big burden for business.

Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Productivity dragged down by government, NDIS jobs boom

Four in five jobs created in the past two years are in industries heavily influenced by government spending and regulation, Labor has been warned.

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/productivity-hzy