By Roy Green, University of Technology Sydney This week’s appointment of Wayne Swan’s former chief of staff Chris Barrett to head the Productivity Commission puts the annual Trade and Assistance Review it released this month under a more searching spotlight than usual. Remarkably, the Commission used the review to target one of the key policies…
In recent days @AuManufacturing readers have critiqued federal governments efforts to ‘reform the Productivity Commission (see below). Here in our final part of a series, Tim Buckley argues Australia cannot afford more of the same from the PC, which continued to misread profound societal and economic change underway globally. Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ announcement yesterday of…
By Peter Roberts The Treasurer Jim Chalmers has opted for gradualist reform of the much criticised Productivity Commission, appointing a former Labor Party staffer to be the commission’s new chair. Chalmers appointed Chris Barrett (pictured) as the new Chair and said ‘to build a stronger economy, we need to build stronger economic institutions – and…
By Peter Roberts That old industrial relic the Productivity Commission has released its latest Trade and Assistance Review, 2021-22 (TAR), and you have to hand it to them, they are really on the ball. Having spent past decades searching out the evil of tariffs and non tariff trade barriers, they have now woken up to…
With the federal government moving to reform its economic advisory body, the Productivity Commission, attention has turned to the outcome of the PC’s decades-long dominance of policy advice to the government – a fragile and narrowly-based resources-driven economy. Here, Phillip Toner and Roy Green outline why the PC must be fundamentally changed. As federal Treasurer…
By Peter Roberts The federal treasurer Jim Chalmers has announced an overhaul the economic advisory body, the Productivity Commission, by broadening and deepening its work on economic policy and keeping a central focus on boosting productivity. Well good luck with that. Labor attempted to reform this bastion of neo-liberal economics once before – by moving…
By Peter Roberts The latest report from the same mob whose policies brought you today’s fragile and narrowly based economy – the Productivity Commission – gives us more of the same faith in markets as suitable drivers of an economy that has so patently hobbled productivity growth. The PC, and its ally the Treasury have…
A new report by the Productivity Commission has concluded that, despite disruptions due to Covid-19 and trade tensions, “only a few” traded products are vulnerable to supply chain shocks.
Comment by Peter Roberts In a move which will be welcomed by most in the manufacturing sector the Productivity Commission has been sidelined in the federal government’s programme to map out a future for the sector post Covid-19. As reported by @AuManufacturing on Friday, former Dow chemical CEO Andrew Liveris has been called up by…
The federal treasurer Jim Chalmers has given the new chair of the Productivity Commission Chris Barrett an impossible job, argues John Sheridan. If we can no longer measure productivity in a digital age – and we can’t – how can any amount of reform of the PC help boost national productivity? Workplace productivity comparisons mean…
