Team Global Express boss calls for urgent productivity reforms in Canberra
Transport boss Christine Holgate is heading to Canberra with a list of easy wins and a simple message to improve Australia's productivity.
Transport boss Christine Holgate is heading to Canberra with a simple message around bold productivity ideas: “Just do it.”
The executive chair of logistics major Team Global Express believes even small changes to dozens of decades-old regulations will make a big difference to the nation’s economy.
The other is getting the states on the same page for some of the most basic business regulations. Combined, these efforts will remove unnecessary cost and friction for business.
“Get rid of barriers and have harmonised standards. Those two things, they’re not going to cost anything, but they will dramatically improve productivity,” Holgate tells The Australian.
The former Australia Post boss and one-time Blackmore’s chief executive is among a clutch of corporate bosses heading to Canberra this week to take part in Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ economic roundtable that is looking at tackling the nation’s poor productivity scorecard.
Other business leaders attending, including Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn, Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar and ex-Labor treasurer Ben Wyatt who serves as a director of both Woodside and Rio Tinto. Former Mirvac chief executive and Macquarie Group director Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz and BHP’s Australia boss Geraldine Slattery will also take part.
All remain hopeful the three-day exercise will result in tangible changes that deliver lasting benefit to the economy. In dozens of submissions, many of Australia’s biggest companies have argued the easy wins of small changes are just as important as big reforms.
This underscores Holgate’s view that Australia should move quickly on recommendations emerging from the summit.
However, with Australia’s patchy record on driving reform over the past decade, they acknowledge the productivity challenge will require goodwill from all stakeholders.
The summit opens on Tuesday, with Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock to set the scene on Australia’s weakening productivity performance.
The forum will look at hurdles to business investment, skills shortage and regulation. Tax will also be discussed on the third day, although Chalmers is resisting the forum from becoming a de facto venue for wholesale reform of the nation’s tax system.
Telstra chief Vicki Brady has welcomed the “national conversation” on productivity. The Telstra boss was involved in the Productivity Commission round tables in the lead up to the event, although won’t be attending this week. For her, anything that advances the rollout of private sector digital infrastructure, including cutting regulation and more co-ordination among arms of government, stands to deliver significant benefits.
“We just see it as foundational,” Brady tells The Australian.
“As an economy and a country, we’re going to need to be tech and innovation led. You’ve got to have digital infrastructure and connectivity to enable that.”
Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn said he expects housing affordability and the barriers to the supply of housing to form a big part of the productivity discussion.
“There’s very good discussions to be had around resilience, around skills, the energy transition, while boosting productivity more broadly,” he said.
“From our perspective ... contribute positively to the right reform agenda over the long term and not so much be constrained to what could be achieved in the next three years”.
Origin chief executive Frank Calabria is another who was hopeful of greater line of visibility between state and federal regulators. Delays in planning between different regulators have been adding to costs of building critical transmission lines to link up renewable energy sources.
“We all understand that you need to maintain high environmental standards, but there must be a way to expedite and streamline that approval process between the federal and state governments, that would be key to make sure we successfully deliver the energy transition with productivity gains,” he said.
Rio Tinto’s outgoing CEO Jakob Stausholm said it was an important moment for Australia to be having this discussion given the rapid escalation of the cost of doing business. To help boost productivity and build a manufacturing base, Australia had to have a willingness to adapt to change.
“Everything about success is the ability to change, and we need to be prepared to open our eyes here in Australia as well,” he said. “So you have to ask yourself, ‘How can we do this differently?’ ”
Chalmers on Sunday dismissed suggestions policy changes had already been locked, particularly around housing. He said this was a matter of preparing advice on a number of issues already raised with the Albanese government.
“I think the effort has already been worth it, because all of this consultation that we’ve done, the progress that we’ve made with the regulators, hundreds of ideas ... about how we make our economy more productive, how we cut red tape, how we quicken the approvals process to build more homes and build more energy projects,” Chalmers told Sky News.
In the lead-up to the round table, the Productivity Commission has issued five interim reports on topics running from investment, technology, skills and energy. The more controversial proposals include a new two-tired corporate tax system, as well as taking light touch around artificial intelligence regulation.
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