Andrew Leigh:
Well good morning, and thanks very much for coming out. My name is Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury. Well, if we look around the world we see countries where inflation is rising. In the UK and US, inflation has recently been going up. While inflation is going north in the UK and US, it’s going south in Australia.
We’ve just seen the latest inflation figure, 2.1 per cent, near the bottom the Reserve Bank’s target band. That’s thanks to the careful measures that Australians have put in place over recent years, working with the Albanese government. We’ve been a government that’s prioritised getting inflation down without smashing jobs. It’s important to recognise that this is unique in Australian history. The story of the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s is that in order to get inflation under control, a whole bunch of Australians lost their jobs. That hasn’t been the case this time.
We’ve got unemployment still low by historic standards. Our government has produced the best unemployment figures of any government in the past half century. So, to have unemployment in the low 4s, inflation in the low 2s really is a remarkable success for Australians, who have now seen 3 years of continuous economic growth.
And as we’ve dealt with those cyclical challenges, we’ve moved down to the structural issues in the economy. Getting productivity moving again is a priority for our government. The decade ending in 2020 was the worst productivity decade in the post‑war era. We’re bringing together a group of people in the Cabinet rooms, led by Treasurer Jim Chalmers for an Economic Reform Roundtable from the 19th to the 21st of August.
Productivity is not a switch we can flip, but we know that there’s a serious to‑do list: competition reforms, clean energy, investing in education, getting infrastructure right. All of those topics and more will be part of the discussion in the Cabinet rooms. And in the lead‑up to that discussion, I’ll be part of a range of roundtables which are looking at particular sectors, including the charity sector.
This is vital as we work together to find the solutions to Australia’s productivity challenges. Building on the work of the last term, the historic merger reforms, National Competition Policy, setting net‑zero targets and investing in education through measures such as free TAFE. The Albanese government has looked to tackle inflation while keeping unemployment low. And now, we’re looking to tackle productivity while ensuring that we have the gains from growth equitably shared across the population.
Thanks very much.