Bloated army of public servants can’t drive business growth

Since its election in 2022, the Labor government has done everything in its ideological power to kill economic growth and productivity through a raft of ill-advised policy, causing our economy to flounder (“Albanese’s reform call: let’s get down to business”, 4/7). Its successful three-year bloat of the public service to handle the exponential growth of red tape and to bolster union membership tells us Anthony Albanese wants a workforce of public servants to the detriment of private enterprise.

As thousands of businesses shut their doors thanks to the hostile reception from this government, we now need to reconnect with a government that can understood small business, the economic engine of our country. Small businesses should be protected and respected by all governments.

Lynda Morrison, Bicton, WA

Anthony Albanese’s grandiose statements on economic reform being driven by business is hollow in the extreme.

He wants us to believe he’s a great reformer. He is determined to go down in history as the great modern leader who changed the nation. Well, I must say he’s partly on the right track: he’s changing the nation but it’s not a change for the better.

During the past three years, there have been record business closures because they just cannot afford to operate.

It’s too costly to produce and serve, and the people cannot afford to buy many things. The incentive to be in business has gone.

Yet, despite all this, Albanese is grandstanding, slapping the private sector on the back and telling it he will take it to the promised land.

If Albanese wants to win over the private sector, he needs to pull the plug on his renewables obsession, stop pandering to unions that are making labour unaffordable, pull his Treasurer into line on taxation, reduce red tape and provide incentives for investment. My guess is he will do none of this.

John George, Terrigal, NSW

It is astonishing that the Prime Minister announces Labor’s economic reform roundtable will declare it’s time for large employers and small business to resume their rightful place as primary drivers of the economy. By any chance would coalminers, gas companies and farmers be part of the “large employers” contingent, having been demonised by this same government?

I was of the impression the only “large employers” this government concerns itself with are the various tiers of Labor government themselves, with their multitudes of public servants on their payrolls. Not to forget, of course, the renewable energy sector, whose success in producing inadequate and unaffordable supplies of electricity is driving small businesses to extinction.

For “primary drivers of the economy” such as these, the economy appears doomed to be driven over a cliff in the near future.

Crispin Walters, Chapel Hill, Qld

We need a serious summit, not a talkfest, whereby Australians in small business and those who genuinely care about our country have a say and are listened to.

For decades, we in Australia have done little to plan for the future. We simply react, and that too slowly. Both Labor and the Coalition have been seriously derelict for decades. At all levels of society, we’ve allowed appalling behaviour to exist and in some areas thrive, such as in the economy, productivity, government, corporate business, Indigenous affairs, aged care and childcare – and on and on it goes. It has been driven by complacency, “flexible” values and a lack of care.

We have unique opportunities and benefits, being a democratic country on an island-continent – opportunities and benefits that may just continue to slip away as we do nothing.

JPC Jenkins, Forster, NSW

Anthony Albanese’s “army” of bureaucrats (“Comply, regulate, manage: PM’s public service army on growth mission”, 3/7) cannot possibly improve business.

All they can do at vast expense to the taxpayer is generate paperwork and forms to fill in and file. Instead, invest that money on people who are willing to put their brains and brawn into generating products and businesses and then watch Australia grow.

Incidentally, the Prime Minister should sort out the energy fiasco and give us cheap, reliable energy.

Marian Hinwood, Elsternwick, Vic