Chalmers’ Roundtable Launches With 3-Day Budget Plan
After weeks of build up, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has set out his objectives for the government’s three-day economic reform roundtable, which kicked off on Tuesday.
Chalmers said the discussions would be informed by what he termed, possibly inspired by 1970s glam rockers The Sweet , a “boardroom blitz”. This included meetings with business leaders, union leaders, more than 40 ministerial roundtables, and almost 900 submissions from across the country.
In his opening remarks on Tuesday, Chalmers emphasised the need for “concrete ideas” that did not add to the cost of the federal budget.
The closed-door roundtable brings together about 25 representatives of business, unions, superannuation and civil society, as well as current and former Treasury secretaries.
“Resilience” was the theme of the first day. Treasury explains that resilience helps the economy withstand disruption and shocks, whether that comes from trade, technology or climate impacts.
Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock in her opening remarks highlighted
the international headwinds facing the domestic economy. Her speech has not been released. But we can get some idea of the Reserve Bank’s concerns from a recent speech by her deputy, Andrew Hauser :
There are certainly significant disruptions to test our resilience at the moment. In a briefing paper, Treasury noted the global economic outlook is very uncertain.
Treasury is too polite to attribute this uncertainty directly to the erratic policies of US President Trump. It does, however, refer to “new discriminatory trade policies” – and their source is President Trump.
The price of gold, a commodity whose price often rises at times of uncertainty, is near a record high.
Drawing on the 2023 Intergenerational Report , Treasury warns of five major forces reshaping Australia’s economy:
While productivity performance has been poor, in other ways Australia has handled recent economic challenges well.
Inflation has been returned to the 2-3% target range . Employment has been around its largest-ever share of the working age population. Unlike most wealthy countries, Australia’s economy has not contracted in any quarter since the COVID recession.
The second session today discussed the recognition of skills, including of migrants.
Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox, who is attending the roundtable, commented :
The treasurer has called the roundtable “three days to inform the next three budgets”. So we need to be patient to see the results from it. The government may want to take some measures to the next election to secure a mandate before implementing them.
Where we may see some quicker action are areas where there may be bipartisan support, such as reducing regulations that delay construction of new homes. This would be consistent with the praise Chalmers has given to the recent book Abundance in which this is a prominent theme.
John Hawkins was formerly a senior economist with the Reserve Bank and the Australian Treasury.