‘Take Productivity Commission report to national cabinet’

Former Productivity Commission chairman Peter Harris has urged the Albanese government to submit last week’s productivity report to national cabinet.

Former Productivity Commission chairman Peter Harris. Picture: David Geraghty

Former Productivity Commission chairman Peter Harris has urged the Albanese government to submit last week’s productivity report to national cabinet, saying the latest blueprint on how to drive future prosperity must, “for the sake of the nation”, be treated with the seriousness it deserves.

The Treasurer has conceded Australia has a “productivity problem” but played down the potential for Labor to run with any of the 71 recommendations across five key themes in Friday’s 1000-page report.

Jim Chalmers, who plans a shake-up of the PC, said on Friday he “wanted to be upfront with people from the very beginning and say there will be some recommendations in this PC report that are inconsistent with our values and priorities as the government, and there is no use pretending otherwise”. With about half of the recommendations falling wholly or entirely to the states and territories, he said he would discuss the PC report with state treasurers at their next meeting in June.

Mr Harris, who delivered the landmark Shifting the Dial report to the Turnbull government in 2017, said “the fact is, Chalmers is not obliged to take the PC’s advice”.

“But on behalf of the nation they have to consider the question: ‘if it’s not that, then what?’,” Mr Harris told The Australian.

“It should be taken to national cabinet via a structured process managed by Treasury with the state treasuries, and by that means it becomes a national priority, which it deserves,” he said.

Mr Harris said Shifting the Dial had been “enthusiastically received” by then treasurer Scott Morrison, who had delivered a positive speech in the immediate aftermath. In the end, none of the 28 recommendations were implemented in full – a result many economists consider a major missed opportunity given Australia’s particularly weak productivity in recent years.

Mr Harris said decisions taken through national cabinet through the pandemic proved it was an effective forum for the commonwealth, states and territories to work together.

“What we lacked last time is a means where jurisdictions are called upon to say what they would do in response. I cannot see any other way to move things forward,” he said. “It (national cabinet) has the capacity to deal with this, because, let’s face it, only a small amount of jurisdictions might want to work with the commonwealth, but that’s better than just putting the report out there and ignoring it.”