Responsibility, not legacy driving Chalmers to reform

Perth Now

a day ago

If those who can't remember history are condemned to repeat it, Jim Chalmers has as good a chance as any at avoiding the pitfalls of reformist treasurers past.
Dr Chalmers is attempting the most ambitious process of economic reform by a Labor treasurer since Paul Keating's 1985 tax summit or Wayne Swan's tax forum of 2011.
While Mr Keating's summit led to significant reform around income taxes, it buried his centrepiece policy - a broad-based consumption tax like the GST - for another 15 years.
Mr Swan's attempt amounted to even less.
History will drive Dr Chalmers as he prepares for his own economic reform roundtable - running from Tuesday to Thursday in Canberra - speculates veteran economist Saul Eslake.
"As a biographer of Keating and a former staffer for Swan, he knows the difference between treasurers who are remembered as great treasurers and treasurers who aren't, and he'd like to be in the former group, I suspect," Mr Eslake says.
Dr Chalmers says he doesn't see it in personal terms.
Australia's economy has made a lot of positive strides in recent years, he says.
Economic developments last week backed that up, with unemployment falling, real wages growing at a five-year high and a third interest rate cut in six months.
But global volatility required more economic resilience, the nation's dismal productivity performance was holding back living standards and a growing budget deficit threatened Australia's future prosperity.
He sees the roundtable as an opportunity to reform the country in ways that make Australians better off.
"I do feel that all of us have a responsibility to use these positions of influence to strengthen the economy and, really, we can't afford as a country to waste the next decade like our predecessors wasted the last one," Dr Chalmers tells AAP.
"So I feel that responsibility but don't see it in personal terms necessarily."
Already, the consultation has been worth it.
"We've shaken the tree for a whole bunch of ideas," he says.
"We've focused the country's attention on our big economic challenges, primarily productivity, and we've helped people understand the kinds of trade-offs and challenges the government is grappling with."
Dr Chalmers says he's optimistic he'll find common ground in moves to remove unnecessary regulation holding back productivity, housing supply and the clean energy transition.
One example is the financial regulator ASIC's announcement on Wednesday that it will review a regulation called RG 97, which forces super funds to disclose stamp duty when reporting fees involved in housing investments.
After feedback from investors at a roundtable in the lead-up to Dr Chalmers' summit, ASIC heard removing the requirement could boost housing investment by $8.7 billion and get an additional 35,000 homes built by institutional investors over the next five years.
That's the low-hanging fruit.
But there are signs the treasurer has been forced to lower his sights for more electorally difficult, large-scale tax reform.
Dr Chalmers insists he and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are singing from the same hymn sheet.
But Mr Eslake believes the treasurer's ambition has been reeled in by his boss, "the staunchest defender of the status quo of any prime minister I can remember".
"Those aspirations appear to have been shot down, as it were, by his much more cautious prime minister, who has made it clear, particularly in the tax space, they're not going to do anything they hadn't said they would do during the election campaign," he says.
History shows governments can't push through major, contentious tax reform without receiving a mandate from the electorate.
But Mr Albanese found himself with a slim majority in his first term, so felt he could only seek a light mandate at his second election, limiting his government to a minor agenda on tax.
One of those policies, reducing the tax concession for holders of large superannuation accounts, has copped flak because it would tax capital gains on assets before they are sold and the increased value is realised.
Mr Eslake would love to see the government use the roundtable as an opportunity to revisit the tax.
"While I support the objective, that people with big super balances should pay more tax, I absolutely support that, I don't like the idea of taxing unrealised gains," he says.
"Sometimes voters will give a government credit for saying, 'yes, I know we had this idea but we've listened to the people and we've realised it's not a good idea'."
Dr Chalmers says he will listen to concerns about the policy but his intention is to proceed with the legislation regardless.
"I try and have a genuinely consultative approach," he says.
"But we announced that policy more than two and a half years ago, we're yet to hear an idea about a better way to go about it. I expect people will raise it at the roundtable and that's fine."
While he stresses he doesn't want to pre-empt things by ruling any ideas in or out in advance, he acknowledges some policies, like raising or broadening the GST, will less likely receive his support.
"The policy changes we are most likely to pick up and run with are the ones consistent with the government's values and directions," Dr Chalmers says.
The government has consulted far and wide for reform ideas in the lead-up to the roundtable.
Nearly 900 submissions have been received, ministers have held more than 40 roundtables of their own and regulators have pitched 280 new ways to reduce the burden of red tape.
Dr Chalmers hopes he can find consensus to avoid the failures of past talkfests and has extended an invitation to shadow treasurer Ted O'Brien "in good faith".
But he fears the coalition will be intentionally obstructionist, to make the roundtable appear a failure and inflict political damage on the government.
"My preference would be that they're constructive about that opportunity," he says.
"Unfortunately, they're showing no signs of that yet. I think it will go down badly in the room if they just try and turn it into some kind of political stunt."
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has accused Labor of choreographing the entire exercise to push through pre-determined policies, following a leaked Treasury document briefing Dr Chalmers on potential outcomes of the summit.
"It just tells me this whole thing is a stitch-up," she told reporters on Thursday.
"They're lining up an exercise at this productivity roundtable that is all about raising taxes.
"We'll call it out when we see it."