Latest / Inside Politics / The ‘Coachella of Canberra’, A.I is coming for us, and is the government serious about tax reform?

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The ‘Coachella of Canberra’, A.I is coming for us, and is the government serious about tax reform? · Inside Politics

• 0:01
  S1: From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
• 0:04
  S1: This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley. It's Friday, August 8th.
• 0:14
  S1: This week on the pod, we are going to delve
• 0:16
  S1: into what we are calling Canberra's Coachella, aka the Productivity Summit,
• 0:20
  S1: which is happening the week after next. What is the
• 0:24
  S1: point of this summit and what is productivity anyway? Here
• 0:28
  S1: to discuss, we have our chief political correspondent, Paul Satchell,
• 0:32
  S1: as usual, and a special guest star and Productivity King,
• 0:35
  S1: senior economics correspondent Shane Reich. Welcome, gentlemen.
• 0:42
  S2: Well, I'm just waiting for the Melrose Place music to
• 0:45
  S2: play for me. But, you know, I'm. Well. Thank you. Jacki.
• 0:49
  S1: Um, see, we haven't even gotten five minutes into the podcast,
• 0:52
  S1: and already you were mentioning our favourite show from the
• 0:54
  S1: 90s that Paul's never heard of.
• 0:56
  S2: Well, it's about time, Paul. This is why Paul struggles
• 0:59
  S2: on struggles and productivity. He doesn't have that. Tapped in
• 1:02
  S2: to the Melrose Place.
• 1:03
  S3: It's on my watch list.
• 1:04
  S1: He doesn't have the deep experience. Okay, Shane, give it
• 1:07
  S1: to us straight. Why has the government called a productivity
• 1:09
  S1: summit and why should we care about it?
• 1:12
  S2: Well, we can give you the positive or the cynical
• 1:15
  S2: answer to this one.
• 1:17
  S1: Give me both.
• 1:17
  S2: Give me both. Positive is after the war on inflation,
• 1:21
  S2: inflation's in a smoldering heap. Uh, the government says right.
• 1:24
  S2: Let's get focused on productivity. Or the cynical answer is
• 1:28
  S2: they were looking for a second term agenda. And uh,
• 1:32
  S2: Jim Chalmers spluttered out on the day after the election, oh,
• 1:35
  S2: we've got to look at productivity now. And the government
• 1:38
  S2: has been scrambling along in that space ever since, six
• 1:42
  S2: of one half dozen of the other as to what's
• 1:44
  S2: going on.
• 1:45
  S1: Okay, so there's a lot of listeners who won't necessarily
• 1:48
  S1: be across productivity as an economic term because it does
• 1:51
  S1: have a specific meaning. Can you just tell us quickly
• 1:53
  S1: what it is and what what the problem with it
• 1:55
  S1: is in Australia? Because we do have a problem with
• 1:57
  S1: it in Australia.
• 1:58
  S2: Well, I'll pull you up on that. It's a global problem.
• 2:00
  S2: This has been going on. It's not. It is. We
• 2:03
  S2: are not all alone on this one. Everyone has struggled,
• 2:07
  S2: especially since the global financial crisis. But and there's a
• 2:10
  S2: whole set of reasons that's really contested. But let's understand
• 2:14
  S2: what productivity is. It is not working harder, which is
• 2:18
  S2: where most people start thinking. I use the word productivity
• 2:21
  S2: and everyone's, oh, you want to make me work harder? No,
• 2:25
  S2: it is being working smarter, producing more with the same inputs,
• 2:31
  S2: the same level of inputs. It's the use of technology.
• 2:35
  S2: It's the use of education. And it is productivity explains
• 2:40
  S2: how the global economy has transformed since the Industrial Revolution.
• 2:46
  S3: People often say productivity is the only way you grow
• 2:50
  S3: living standards. If you don't become more productive over time,
• 2:53
  S3: you don't increase real wages. Why is it such a
• 2:57
  S3: direct link?
• 2:58
  S2: I think you're paraphrasing Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, who says
• 3:02
  S2: in the long run, productivity. It may not be everything,
• 3:05
  S2: but it's just about everything.
• 3:07
  S3: And to quote Keynes, in the long run, we're all dead.
• 3:09
  S2: Thank you. We'll we'll be we'll be battling out on
• 3:12
  S2: quotations here shortly because put it this way. So pre-industrial
• 3:16
  S2: revolution technology didn't improve. And so the living standards of people, uh, from,
• 3:24
  S2: you know, the end of the Roman Empire through to
• 3:27
  S2: the 16th century was pretty crap. It didn't improve because
• 3:31
  S2: you didn't have the technological changes. So the estimate in
• 3:36
  S2: in this country is that since federation so 1901, I
• 3:41
  S2: am old, but I wasn't there. Um, is that about
• 3:44
  S2: 60 to 70% of the productivity growth? The improvement in
• 3:49
  S2: living standards has been due to technology. And about 25% 5%
• 3:55
  S2: has been due to the fact that we've got smarter.
• 3:58
  S1: Yes. And we talked I think we talked previously on this,
• 4:02
  S1: on this podcast, even about air conditioning in humid and
• 4:04
  S1: hot climates, how that has lifted productivity. Just tell us, though,
• 4:08
  S1: what productivity isn't going backwards in Australia, but it's slumped
• 4:11
  S1: or it's not growing very fast.
• 4:13
  S2: Yeah. It's not. And this is what I'm saying. Like
• 4:16
  S2: globally there has been this slowdown. And so one of
• 4:20
  S2: the best examples of this is so I am old
• 4:24
  S2: enough to remember when everyone had a typewriter. And then
• 4:27
  S2: you had the advent of the PC, which is the
• 4:31
  S2: advent of computing power through the entire economy, actually contributed
• 4:38
  S2: to this huge surge in productivity that we saw in
• 4:40
  S2: the 1980s and 1990s and into the 2000. There were
• 4:44
  S2: other things going on, but the technological change was extraordinary,
• 4:48
  S2: driven by that. But you're saying you're saying, why is
• 4:51
  S2: it slowed There's a whole host of reasons, including the
• 4:56
  S2: fact that the economy itself is changing as. And we've
• 5:01
  S2: got people, more older, people who need care. We've got
• 5:04
  S2: more people in childcare than we ever had. These things
• 5:09
  S2: require lots of people.
• 5:11
  S1: So the government is having a productivity summit to sort
• 5:13
  S1: of discuss all these issues on the agenda. We have resilience,
• 5:16
  S1: we have productivity, budget sustainability and also tax reform, which
• 5:19
  S1: we'll get onto later. The summit is happening the week
• 5:23
  S1: after next in Canberra. Paul, I imagine the guest list
• 5:26
  S1: for this summit has been curated pretty carefully. Who is
• 5:28
  S1: on the guest list?
• 5:29
  S3: Yeah, it's how many people has it changed? 25, 24, 25.
• 5:33
  S3: On the list are heads of banks like Matt Coleman
• 5:36
  S3: from Commbank. Scott Farquhar from Atlassian, the man who's become
• 5:42
  S3: the kind of productivity guru, I'd say. Ken Henry, the
• 5:45
  S3: former Treasury secretary on the political front. There's very few MPs.
• 5:50
  S3: It's She is himself. The Prime Minister will be there,
• 5:54
  S3: I think, on day one and his economic team, Katie
• 5:57
  S3: Gallagher and Daniel Molina, the assistant treasurer, will be there
• 6:00
  S3: from opposition parties. There's Allegra Spender, the teal MP and
• 6:03
  S3: frequent tax reform advocate aficionado, perhaps, and there is an
• 6:09
  S3: opposition MP, the shadow treasurer, Ted O'Brien, will be there
• 6:12
  S3: and there'll be union leaders and heads of business, peak bodies,
• 6:15
  S3: the usual talking heads we hear a lot from.
• 6:17
  S1: Okay. So there are very solid reasons why we need
• 6:20
  S1: this summit, why we need tax reform. Government spending has
• 6:23
  S1: basically blown out. It's increased by by about 2% of GDP.
• 6:27
  S1: Quoting from a story from Shane Risch. We have an
• 6:30
  S1: aging population. We have a sort of a blowout in
• 6:32
  S1: government services, particularly the NDIS, which is really, really blown
• 6:36
  S1: out and is not showing any signs of sort of
• 6:38
  S1: reversing that trend. Federal spending this year will hit the
• 6:41
  S1: highest share of the economy since 1986, according to a
• 6:45
  S1: Treasury forecast.
• 6:47
  S2: Outside of Covid.
• 6:48
  S1: Yeah, outside of Covid.
• 6:49
  S2: Always.
• 6:50
  S1: Yeah.
• 6:50
  S2: Covid is, uh, sits there pretty large as a big
• 6:54
  S2: whack of cash.
• 6:54
  S1: Yeah. Okay. But, Paul, I mean, I guess what I'm
• 6:57
  S1: wondering from both of you is if there is actually
• 6:59
  S1: any political appetite that you're sensing to address these very,
• 7:02
  S1: very real structural problems. Or does the Albanese government just
• 7:06
  S1: want to be seen to be addressing them and perhaps
• 7:08
  S1: need there in search of a second term agenda?
• 7:11
  S3: Um, I think there's both both things are true. There
• 7:15
  S3: is a real appetite to tackle some of these big
• 7:17
  S3: structural issues now that the government has a bit more freedom,
• 7:20
  S3: as Shane said, because the inflation problem is not so stark.
• 7:24
  S3: But the big question on everyone's mind is how big
• 7:26
  S3: a fight is. The Albanese government, and particularly the treasurer,
• 7:29
  S3: Jim Chalmers, willing to take on and the prime minister.
• 7:31
  S3: Of course, there have been big hopes from some stakeholders
• 7:35
  S3: and economists and journalists and others who have been banging
• 7:38
  S3: the drum on economic reform for years. A lot of
• 7:41
  S3: the solutions or proposed solutions are well known and well ventilated,
• 7:46
  S3: but they require big political arguments, and the question is
• 7:50
  S3: whether the government is willing to have those. This week
• 7:54
  S3: we had some background briefings that we're not allowed to
• 7:57
  S3: really talk much about, so I'll be a bit vague.
• 7:59
  S2: But he'll go ahead anyway.
• 8:01
  S3: Yeah, I kind of wrote it in the newspaper today.
• 8:03
  S3: So the cat's out of the bag a little bit. Um,
• 8:05
  S3: we had some background briefings that were pretty clearly trying
• 8:10
  S3: to douse speculation that the government was going to radically
• 8:14
  S3: alter its economic agenda off the back of this roundtable.
• 8:17
  S3: The Prime Minister said on Monday, I think it was.
• 8:19
  S3: And the Prime Minister's courtyard that this roundtable is just that.
• 8:23
  S3: It's a roundtable for ideas. They might be sitting around
• 8:26
  S3: the cabinet table, but it is not the federal cabinet.
• 8:28
  S3: And the government will set its own policy course. But
• 8:31
  S3: the government would argue that by having this elongated debate,
• 8:36
  S3: where important ideas have been able to be thrown up,
• 8:39
  S3: even if they don't come out of this roundtable with
• 8:42
  S3: a shopping list of items that can be immediately ticked
• 8:45
  S3: off by the cabinet, they could still create momentum for
• 8:49
  S3: some big ideas, some of which can be executed quickly,
• 8:52
  S3: others which might be picked up later in the term.
• 8:55
  S1: The Productivity Commission, which is sort of, I suppose, the
• 8:57
  S1: government's own think tank, has done a series of reports
• 9:00
  S1: in the lead up to this roundtable, Shane, which you've
• 9:03
  S1: been dutifully reporting on. The latest one was about artificial intelligence.
• 9:07
  S1: Now all of a sudden it seems like everyone is
• 9:09
  S1: talking about artificial intelligence. It really is obviously transformative. It's
• 9:14
  S1: going to be a huge disruption to the economy and
• 9:16
  S1: to the jobs market. This PC report found that it
• 9:19
  S1: could be a real productivity boon to the Australian economy
• 9:22
  S1: and grow productivity by 4.3%, which adds, I don't know,
• 9:26
  S1: $116 billion in economic output, according to your story. The
• 9:31
  S1: report also said that the government should not try to
• 9:34
  S1: regulate AI or to overregulate it. Does the government have
• 9:39
  S1: a position on its response to that? Is it going
• 9:42
  S1: to try to regulate AI, or does it have any
• 9:45
  S1: kind of a plan for the AI transition.
• 9:47
  S2: It's interesting because there is a debate within the government
• 9:51
  S2: over this. Very much so at the moment. And because
• 9:54
  S2: you've got say that same report says, right, there will
• 9:58
  S2: be job losses as there is with all technology industries
• 10:03
  S2: come and go and technology often drives what happens to them. Um,
• 10:11
  S2: so in this case the the PC says, yes, there'll
• 10:15
  S2: be more new jobs offsetting the job losses, but says yes,
• 10:18
  S2: there will be job losses. So this has led to the, say,
• 10:22
  S2: the union movement so well fed through into the the
• 10:25
  S2: government saying we want tight restrictions effectively, the ACTU suggesting
• 10:30
  S2: we want to write the regulations around how AI is introduced,
• 10:36
  S2: whereas the PC is coming from it saying you start
• 10:39
  S2: overregulating or not even using the regulations that you have,
• 10:43
  S2: then you could kill the advantages and the benefits that
• 10:47
  S2: will flow. So yeah. And this is there is you
• 10:50
  S2: can see it. Jim Chalmers is more towards the PC view.
• 10:54
  S2: Let's use the existing laws that we have. Uh, and
• 10:58
  S2: there are others within the government saying, hey, hold on.
• 11:01
  S2: We've got to protect. We've got to protect our workers.
• 11:04
  S2: We have to protect our communities. We really need to
• 11:06
  S2: get on top of this.
• 11:08
  S3: Um, it's interesting how the rhetoric has changed over the
• 11:11
  S3: past year or so. Ed Husic, the former minister for innovation,
• 11:14
  S3: when he was still in the job, about, I don't know, 12,
• 11:17
  S3: 18 months ago at the time when we just learned
• 11:19
  S3: about ChatGPT, there was this global reckoning about this, these
• 11:23
  S3: new models that we were seeing. And there was a
• 11:25
  S3: lot of fear around what could be next and what
• 11:28
  S3: what effect it would have on the society. And at
• 11:30
  S3: that point, Ed Husic started floating the idea, and it
• 11:33
  S3: was his preference to do a new AI act, a
• 11:36
  S3: new piece of legislation that would put, you know, the
• 11:38
  S3: cliche term at the time was guardrails around AI to
• 11:41
  S3: prevent another cliche term, I harms. People in the government
• 11:45
  S3: are not really talking about an act anymore, it's shifting
• 11:47
  S3: in the other direction. But Ed Husic this week still
• 11:49
  S3: now not a minister dumped out of the cabinet, is
• 11:52
  S3: still arguing for an I act. So it's not settled.
• 11:56
  S3: And there are different views here.
• 11:57
  S1: I mean, on the one hand you can see that
• 11:59
  S1: that's a mad it seems like a mad idea because
• 12:01
  S1: the technology's moving so fast anyway. How could legislation possibly
• 12:04
  S1: keep up with it? But on the other hand, it
• 12:06
  S1: is a big threat to jobs. And if you don't
• 12:07
  S1: manage that transition, then it could end up sort of
• 12:10
  S1: being socially very inequitable. And it seems like the government
• 12:13
  S1: sort of standing back and allowing the debate to unfold,
• 12:15
  S1: but it doesn't seem to have any particular ideas or
• 12:17
  S1: solutions at this point. Let's talk about tax, because that's
• 12:21
  S1: the other part of this.
• 12:22
  S3: Well, just sorry to interrupt you, but that's just in
• 12:24
  S3: terms of what the government can do. That's one big question.
• 12:27
  S3: If the government can do anything, particularly a government of
• 12:29
  S3: a small nation like Australia, we are not the price
• 12:32
  S3: makers of AI regulation. If there is to be any
• 12:35
  S3: AI regulation that has any meaningful effect, it's probably going
• 12:38
  S3: to come out of the EU or the US, and
• 12:41
  S3: the US is moving in the other direction entirely. So
• 12:44
  S3: the Trump administration is, like, threatening the rest of the
• 12:47
  S3: world to not do any regulation on AI. The people,
• 12:50
  S3: there's people in the cabinet who think there's absolutely no
• 12:52
  S3: use in Australia even comprehending, uh, regulating AI except for
• 12:57
  S3: specific use cases like the creation of deepfakes to create
• 13:01
  S3: explicit images of people in schools, for example, which can
• 13:04
  S3: be dealt with by new criminal laws.
• 13:06
  S1: That I mean that that is regulation, I suppose. Um,
• 13:09
  S1: that's what we're sort of talking about. At what level
• 13:11
  S1: will the government intervene and try to regulate this stuff?
• 13:14
  S1: Let's talk about tax, because, um, the Productivity Roundtable is
• 13:18
  S1: obviously an excuse for policy wonks and people like Shane
• 13:22
  S1: Reich to come out of the woodwork where they've been hiding.
• 13:25
  S2: And I didn't I didn't know I was hiding in
• 13:27
  S2: the woodwork.
• 13:28
  S1: No, I was going to say, this is a this
• 13:29
  S1: is a bit worrisome under a bushel at all.
• 13:31
  S3: But he's been giddy, Jack.
• 13:33
  S1: The.
• 13:33
  S3: Last the last two weeks of Productivity Commission reports every day.
• 13:36
  S3: He just doesn't stop smiling.
• 13:37
  S1: It's really delightful. Um, I guess it gives you an
• 13:40
  S1: even bigger platform on which to talk about tax. So
• 13:46
  S1: a lot of new ideas, or shall I say, a
• 13:48
  S1: lot of ideas for taxes and new taxes have been floated.
• 13:52
  S1: Broadening of the GST base, changes to capital gains tax exemptions,
• 13:56
  S1: negative gearing including the family home in the pension assets test.
• 14:00
  S1: All sorts of things. Questions about generational inequity. Questions about
• 14:04
  S1: superannuation taxes. Are we going to see any new ideas
• 14:07
  S1: for tax reform actually be adopted out of this, Shane.
• 14:10
  S1: And which in your view, are the sort of frontrunners.
• 14:13
  S2: Look, whether they'll be adopted, I wouldn't want to put
• 14:16
  S2: your great capital gain approved home on the line for that, Jack,
• 14:20
  S2: because I am very circumspect whether this government will make
• 14:24
  S2: a big change in tax when they hadn't actually given
• 14:28
  S2: voters a head start on this before the last election.
• 14:30
  S2: And I think that goes to where Anthony Albanese is
• 14:33
  S2: in terms of like, I want to bring punters with me,
• 14:37
  S2: but I think what stands out like. Yes. What a
• 14:41
  S2: surprise that the business community wants a cut in the
• 14:43
  S2: company tax rate. Who wouldn't want to pay less tax?
• 14:46
  S2: Like Paul, highly paid scale here. Would love a cut
• 14:50
  S2: in their personal income tax stuff space, but somehow you
• 14:53
  S2: have to pay for it. So this has been one
• 14:55
  S2: of these things that, uh, Jim Chalmers has been upfront
• 14:58
  S2: ever since this whole thing started. If you're going to
• 15:00
  S2: come up with a tax reform, you've got to find
• 15:02
  S2: a way to pay for it. And outside of few
• 15:06
  S2: areas that that has been missing in terms of. Got
• 15:10
  S2: an idea? Yep. I'd like to pay less tax and
• 15:13
  S2: someone would also have to pay for it. Yeah, we
• 15:15
  S2: would all love that. That that world sounds fantastic, but
• 15:18
  S2: it's not the reality that we're going to see.
• 15:20
  S1: Paul, what's your sense from within the government? Because Anthony
• 15:23
  S1: Albanese sort of official line is like, it's all good,
• 15:25
  S1: it's all good. We're talking about ideas. Nothing's, you know,
• 15:28
  S1: nothing is government policy. Government policy will be decided around
• 15:31
  S1: the cabinet table. Are they actually serious about tax reform?
• 15:34
  S1: I feel like this. This just gets raised repeatedly. repeatedly,
• 15:37
  S1: and no government of either stripe actually wants to do
• 15:40
  S1: anything real about tax reform to increase the revenue base.
• 15:44
  S3: No it's not. It's not clear what appetite they have
• 15:46
  S3: on this kind of wholesale tax reform that some of
• 15:50
  S3: the economic purists argue for. On the productivity question a
• 15:53
  S3: question in Shane is, um, educated me on this over time.
• 15:57
  S3: Tax occupies a huge amount of space in the productivity debate,
• 16:05
  S3: particularly in sections of the media that are more laissez
• 16:08
  S3: faire and have greater emphasis on lower taxes and a
• 16:11
  S3: more deregulated, um, workforce. It is important for productivity, but
• 16:18
  S3: it's not everything. And Danielle Wood, the productivity commissioner, is
• 16:21
  S3: emphasizing a whole other set of productivity enhancing reforms, which
• 16:25
  S3: the government does seem to have more appetite to move
• 16:28
  S3: on quickly around, uh, quicker energy approvals around getting the
• 16:33
  S3: housing market to work better. and around deregulation, which has
• 16:38
  S3: become all the rage since the abundance book by US journalists,
• 16:43
  S3: which a lot of people say they have read and
• 16:45
  S3: probably some have actually read. I have read it. You
• 16:48
  S3: have read it. Change it. I read some of it.
• 16:50
  S3: I heard it in audiobook form.
• 16:51
  S1: All you have to do is go to ChatGPT and
• 16:53
  S1: ask for the dot points. You don't need to read
• 16:55
  S1: books anymore.
• 16:56
  S3: Yeah, exactly. So I think the government will disappoint many
• 16:59
  S3: of the commentators and economists who want the tax mix
• 17:04
  S3: shifted to have less income tax and more reliance on
• 17:10
  S3: indirect taxes like the GST. The government has indicated that
• 17:13
  S3: it will not touch the GST, despite widespread approval, that
• 17:16
  S3: changing that mix would be a good thing for the
• 17:18
  S3: economy because it would be a massive political fight and
• 17:20
  S3: they do not have a mandate for it. But it
• 17:22
  S3: doesn't mean they can't do other good things, which may
• 17:25
  S3: not be as headline grabbing.
• 17:26
  S1: Shane, you might not get any tax reform out of
• 17:28
  S1: this summit, but what about cuts? I mean, that's the
• 17:30
  S1: other piece of the pie, right? If we can't grow
• 17:33
  S1: the revenue base through beautiful new taxes, then perhaps we
• 17:37
  S1: can trim the bottom line. Is anyone talking about that?
• 17:40
  S1: Is it even on the agenda? Are we likely to
• 17:43
  S1: see anyone talk about actually trimming government expenditure?
• 17:46
  S2: The funny like budget sustainability is both tax and spending.
• 17:51
  S2: So the government has been talking about look at what
• 17:53
  S2: we're doing on the NDIS. It's not growing at 14%
• 17:56
  S2: a year.
• 17:57
  S1: It's still growing at like eight.
• 17:58
  S2: It's still growing at 8% a year.
• 17:59
  S1: Yeah.
• 18:00
  S2: So whether that is clearly not sustainable and then you've
• 18:03
  S2: got say the defence hawks saying we've got to spend
• 18:07
  S2: a hell of a lot more in the defence space. Um,
• 18:10
  S2: this is where you get into the argument, right. You
• 18:12
  S2: could actually you, you may not want to cut because
• 18:15
  S2: ultimately where you can cut to make huge savings are
• 18:20
  S2: the most politically sensitive areas. And where there are literally
• 18:25
  S2: millions of people dependent on some sort of assistance from
• 18:29
  S2: ignore unemployment benefits, aged pension, that's the single biggest welfare
• 18:34
  S2: payment in the budget. I'm not like apart from, say,
• 18:39
  S2: bringing the the family home into the pensions test. No
• 18:44
  S2: one's saying. Right. Yeah. Pensions have got to. Got it. Too. Good.
• 18:47
  S2: We better cut their their expenditure. It's how you actually, um,
• 18:52
  S2: provide support. Can you do it in a better way?
• 18:55
  S2: So you don't have to spend as much or the
• 18:58
  S2: growth slows. That's. I think that's where you end up. Yeah.
• 19:01
  S2: In that, in that space on that side of the budget.
• 19:04
  S2: But you're right. It hasn't been there's not a huge
• 19:07
  S2: amount of debate in that space. But you do have
• 19:10
  S2: people saying, oh, we've just got to cut spending. Of
• 19:12
  S2: course this is like tax cuts. I'll cut spending for
• 19:15
  S2: somebody else, but spending for on me or no, that's
• 19:18
  S2: really important.
• 19:19
  S3: Allegra spender.
• 19:19
  S2: Is.
• 19:20
  S3: Doing well to set the terms of the debate on
• 19:22
  S3: spending in our newspaper on Thursday, talking about the care economy, NDIS,
• 19:27
  S3: uh uh, aged care. The government did some good work
• 19:30
  S3: last term to reform those areas and bring spending more
• 19:33
  S3: into check. But there's still massive they do. They're not
• 19:37
  S3: productivity enhancing areas. We need them for the society. They
• 19:39
  S3: do transform people's lives, these programs. But it's huge questions
• 19:43
  S3: about whether the budget can continue to afford these things.
• 19:46
  S3: This is spend. Spend has been brave in talking about them.
• 19:48
  S2: I just want to come back like we talk about
• 19:50
  S2: trade offs all over, like economics is the the concept
• 19:54
  S2: of trade offs. So I go to someone says, all right,
• 19:58
  S2: we've got to do something about aged care. I say, well,
• 19:59
  S2: have you read the Aged Care Royal Commission report? And
• 20:02
  S2: they go, what are you talking about? I say, read
• 20:04
  S2: that and you go, the trade off is do you
• 20:06
  S2: want your your mother or your grandmother in care, which
• 20:11
  S2: is terrible, terrible food, bed sores.
• 20:14
  S1: Yeah.
• 20:15
  S2: A threat of violence. Or do we as a community,
• 20:18
  S2: we say, okay, we're going to say we're going to
• 20:21
  S2: have to spend more. There is a trade off there,
• 20:24
  S2: but mum or grandma is going to have a much
• 20:27
  S2: better quality of life. These are these are huge issues
• 20:30
  S2: that like I say, productivity. There we we get into
• 20:34
  S2: what's the trade.
• 20:35
  S1: Off you're prepared to make? I mean these are all
• 20:36
  S1: trade offs that are worked out through the, you know,
• 20:38
  S1: through the democratic system, as they should be. Allegra Spender,
• 20:41
  S1: as you reported, Paul, makes the point that with something
• 20:43
  S1: like the NDIS, if it just keeps blowing out and
• 20:45
  S1: blowing out, then it does lose public support and the
• 20:48
  S1: social licence, even though it is obviously an incredibly important
• 20:51
  S1: reform and has transformed a lot of people's lives. Guys,
• 20:54
  S1: that's all we have time for. I'm sure that we
• 20:56
  S1: will come back to the Productivity Summit, and we always
• 20:59
  S1: enjoy having Shane, and this is such a good time
• 21:02
  S1: of year for you. This is like sort of a
• 21:03
  S1: career highlight surely?
• 21:05
  S2: Well, just talking to you as a career highlight. So
• 21:08
  S2: come on. And being linked to Heather Locklear every time
• 21:11
  S2: we appear like that's no much better. But look, I
• 21:14
  S2: think we could do a daily like live stream, the, uh,
• 21:17
  S2: the Productivity Roundtable for three days, 24 hours, back to
• 21:21
  S2: back to.
• 21:22
  S3: Back grand.
• 21:23
  S1: Final. I'm thinking TikToks, I'm thinking YouTube videos.
• 21:27
  S2: I think I think there's a there's a few answers
• 21:29
  S2: to that, but we don't have time for it, do we, Jackie?
• 21:32
  S1: No, we certainly don't. But we will see you both
• 21:34
  S1: again soon, Paul. I'll see you next week. Thanks very much, guys.
• 21:37
  S4: Thank you. Jackie.
• 21:43
  S1: Today's episode was produced by Josh towers with technical assistance
• 21:47
  S1: from Kai Wong and Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is
• 21:51
  S1: Tammy Mills, and Tom McKendrick is our head of audio.
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• 22:18
  S1: Jacqueline Maley, thank you for listening.