a day ago
Jim Chalmers's economic reform roundtable is a chance to do more than tinker
There are ways to solicit political ideas and there are ways to solicit political ideas.
At one end of the spectrum you can ask complete strangers.
It's a cheap way of doing it and, as with anything cheap, you usually end up paying twice.
Joe Hockey in 2009 was offered the Liberal leadership "on a plate" as the partyroom moved to topple Malcolm Turnbull.
Supporters reportedly included Tony Abbott and Nick Minchin on the condition that Hockey dump his support for Kevin Rudd's emissions trading scheme known as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
As the tensions built, Hockey mulled what to do, setting a new standard for political consultation by going on what was then Twitter, still in its infancy.
"Hey team re The ETS," Hockey wrote. "Give me your views please on the policy and political debate. I really want your feedback."
A barrage of conflicting advice followed, and Julia Gillard, who was acting prime minister that morning, scoffed that "you can't govern the nation by tweet".
"People don't expect their politicians to just text out a message — imagine, you know, 'what do you think the defence budget should be?'" she said.
There's been much discussion this week about the wisdom or otherwise of seeking ideas.
Does a smart politician really need to ask the room? Or are you better off only asking things you already have an answer for.
And is it realistic to expect such a process to deliver immediate results?
Next week's "economic roundtable" is the latest attempt to harvest ideas and build momentum for political change. It's both a "softening up" exercise and a way to ease pressure from those who want Labor to be more ambitious in its second term.
What should the prime minister spend his political capital on?
On the roundtable, it's been easy to be critical, and certainly there are internal grumblings about its likely efficacy, and whether it has merely set a bunch of random hares running.
When first announced in June, Treasurer Jim Chalmers urged the press gallery to shun the normal "rule in; rule out" policy game. Everything was to be on the proverbial table.
What followed was an avalanche of suggestions, many from the usual self-serving voices.
As the roundtable nears, the list of ideas has grown longer, more ambitious and often contradictory.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions wants a four-day work week and regulation of artificial intelligence; the Business Council of Australia reckons aggressive deregulation is needed to cut $110 billion in annual "red tape" costs across the economy.
In response, the government has moved to curb expectations for what the three-day cabinet-room meeting can achieve.
The prime minister has insisted there will be no tax changes until after the next election, and that the government's priority is delivering what it took to voters in May.
The result is that next week's meeting is likely to produce relatively modest outcomes.
These include moves to make it easier to approve and build homes and perhaps some kind of road user charging trial.
But the hope, including among participants and the government, is that it sets off a longer-run process.
Because much as a road-user policy or a freeze on building regulations may be useful, they're ultimately small beer.
As the Reserve Bank of Australia revealed this week, the nation's living standards are under pressure. The bank's economists used to think the sluggish productivity numbers of recent years were temporary. No longer. The rot has set in.
Which means tinkering around the edges may have a much bigger long-term opportunity cost than many anticipate.
If productivity growth slows to 0.7 per cent over coming years — below Treasury's already-weak 1.2 per cent expectation — the annual budget balance could be about $40 billion worse off in 2034-35 dollars, according to economist Chris Richardson.
Former Treasury boss Ken Henry calculates that the nation's inability to improve productivity growth has cost workers about $500,000 in lost pay rises over the past quarter century.
Economists warn that without an improvement, governments of all persuasion will struggle to meet the soaring cost of commitments to maintain a high-class NDIS, a universal near-fee-free childcare system, and perhaps "Medicare for dental", if the Greens and Labor backbench have their way.
Put across that the ongoing pressure from the US on allies including Australia to raise military spending.
By one estimate, the White House wants the government to roughly double defence spending to almost $100 billion a year "as soon as possible".
Blessedly, the treasurer has made it clear the roundtable's purpose is not to produce some G20-style communique.
He has urged the two-dozen or so daily participants able to fit into the cabinet room to come up with solutions rather than yet another analysis of the underlying problems.
Compromise and grand bargain-making between big groups is the ultimate goal.
It's all worthy stuff, of course, but so far the omens have not been great.
The worst has been the immediate shooting down of a proposal this month by the Productivity Commission for a cashflow tax.
A world-first, it is designed to sharpen incentives for medium-sized companies to invest by allowing firms to immediately reduce their taxable income by the value of their investments.
Andrew Fraser — one of Chalmers's oldest friends — has applauded the commission's "courage and imagination", saying the idea should remain on the table.
"The coalition of the unwilling that quickly formed against the idea held up a mirror to the malaise in our public discourse," Fraser, who will attend next week's event, wrote in The Australian.
"Too much of the debate to date has been about the form and process of the roundtable, not the substantive issues.
"We need an abundance of ideas here, not the dead weight of sectional conditionality."
Speaking to this column on Friday, Fraser — a former Queensland Labor Treasurer and now head of a major superannuation fund — said there ought to be rules for responding to big ideas.
"If an idea has been worked on for six months, like this was, there should be a six-day pause before anyone responds," he said.
From the perspective of a news reporter, this is patently a terrible idea. But it's worth contemplating.
Taking a more measured approach — which is really the Albanese government's self-declared guiding principle — might actually be tolerable if it can produce something more than tinkering.
Soliciting ideas is part of the business. But only if the listening and learning is done in good faith.
Jacob Greber is political editor of ABC's 7.30 program.
