February
Australia must catch up and get serious about cutting red tape
Deregulation is a good place to start, but cutting red tape alone is not a silver bullet to fix Australia’s economic stagnation.
January
CEOs reveal how to fix the productivity problem
Business reckons it’s ready to invest to help bolster living standards for all Australians. It just needs some policy help.
More skilled migration, less red tape to kickstart economy: CEOs
The government needs to stimulate sagging productivity growth if Australia is to prosper, business warns.
December 2024
‘Australia is falling behind’: 55 CEOs demand election action
Top chief executives say the next federal government must make the nation’s crippling regulatory burden and housing supply top priorities.
CEOs reveal their asks for the coming election
With a federal vote due by mid-May at the latest, Australian business leaders highlight what they think the government and opposition should focus on to win.
November 2024
Westpac’s departing King sees two pain points for Australia
Peter King leaves having steered Westpac through an impressive turnaround. But he sees two problems Australia needs to solve.
October 2024
‘It comes down to housing all the time’: NAB chief’s growth warning
The bank’s boss, Andrew Irvine, says access to talent is the biggest hurdle for SME growth. But our housing crisis isn’t helping.
June 2024
ASIC trains its sights on private equity
The regulator is trying to work out what’s caused the slump in public listings, and whether this has triggered problems that ASIC needs to tackle.
April 2024
Alcoa vows to ‘listen better’ as it closes in on Alumina
Alcoa boss Bill Oplinger says permitting delays in Western Australia showed the US company needed to listen better, as he prepares to spend $4.6 billion buying more Australian assets.
March 2024
Rinehart boss blasts Labor’s ‘nature-positive’ agenda
Gina Rinehart’s business empire has hit out over what it argues are flawed plans to rewrite national environmental laws.
Chalmers pushes planning scheme amid torrent of new banking rules
The treasurer said the so-called regulatory grid would force regulators to consider the burden of changes on lenders, especially smaller and regional groups.
Labor is modernising the economy
The Albanese government will make our economy more productive by easing compliance costs on business where we can, we will abolish hundreds of nuisance tariffs.
Forrests lash Europe’s labour law climbdown
Germany and Italy kiboshed an EU law that would compel firms to weed out forced labour in their supply chains. The Forrests fear a ripple effect in Australia.
September 2023
Mental health compo drives $2.5bn hit to NSW Budget
Rising costs and liabilities in the government’s insurance schemes will lengthen the odds of a surplus in coming years.
The UK answer to the banks’ regulation strangulation problem
Peter King and Anna Bligh met Jim Chalmers to call for a high-level planning scheme to force legislators and regulators to sequence compliance demands.
August 2023
Slash red tape, boost migration to beat growth slump: CEOs
Business leaders say the government has the levers to lift productivity and economic growth, which the government expects to slump to a post-World War II low.
June 2023
Banks urge Canberra to copy UK playbook on easing red tape
UK regulators have to sit round a table twice a year and ensure their rule-making isn’t overloading the sector. The Albanese government has been asked to import the idea.
February 2023
Migration is Australia’s ‘special sauce’. But the system is broken
Our large, unstrategic, uncapped temporary program has become the centrepiece of our migration system – and its biggest source of problems.
Letters: Hostility to mining, or to coal?
All mining isn’t coal mining; fossil fuel ban; uninterrupted power supply; population as a growth strategy; wrong anti-inflation levers; red tape; digital health records; Commonwealth Bank.
October 2022
British PM sets out a classic Thatcherite playbook
The embattled Liz Truss didn’t reveal any policies, but forcefully laid out her values: cut red tape, put tax money back in people’s pockets, shrink the state.