Coronavirus Australia: Wave of changes to wash away barriers to reinvigorated future

A report­ delivered during Scott Morrison’s time as treasurer will help drive the government’s post-virus reform agenda.

Reserve Bank Governor Phillip Lowe. Picture: Joel Carrett/AAP

A Productivity Commission report­ delivered during Scott Morrison’s tenure as treasurer will help drive the government’s planned reform agenda to create a new, reinvigorated Australia in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

The Shifting the Dial review of 2017 offered a range of policy ­reforms to improve delivery of health and government services, upskill the workforce, get the incentive­s right for — and remove barriers to — innovation, and improve the functioning of our cities.

In a speech on Tuesday, Res­erve­ Bank governor Philip Lowe said there was “an opportunity to build on the co-operative spirit that is now serving us so well to push forward with reforms that would move us out of the shadows cast by the crisis”.

Among a multitude of reports detailing measures to increase the productive capacity of the economy, the Shifting the Dial report and the 2015 Harper review of competition policy, which was led by current RBA board member Ian Harper, loom as key blueprints.

The government’s National COVID-19 Co-ordination Commission, established to mobilise “a whole-of-society and whole-of-economy effort” to “come through this unprecedented health crisis”, includes members intimately involved­ with Shifting the Dial.

They include former PC chairman Peter Harris and former Treasury secretary Philip Gaetjens, now head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

While the RBA boss’s persistent calls for fiscal reform have previously been a source of tension between Martin Place and Canberra, Dr Lowe highlighted on Tuesday an extraordinary level of co-ordination between the government and the central bank. He suggested his calls for reforms in areas such as infrastructure, taxation, industrial relations and regulation were a likely taste of what could be expected to be a wave of reforms in coming months, once the crisis has passed.

Ensuring Australian workers and students have the skills for the modern economy was also a pressing concern, Dr Lowe said.

Last year, former New Zealand minister Steven Joyce completed a federal government-sponsored review­ into Australia’s vocational education and training ­system, essentiall­y an inquiry into TAFEs and apprenticeships.

Mr Joyce, who now leads an expert­ panel to advise on the future of the VET sector, says there will be greater demand across the skills sector should Dr Lowe’s forecasts of a spike in unemployment to 10 per cent come to pass.

“Our priority is to build a much stronger system, which has the support of the federal and state governments, and also of students and employers,” he said.

The expert panel will set up a national skills commission to provide governments with a “consistent labour market forecast around skill shortages and spare capacity”.