17 April 2023
The first MEF for 2023 is titled Productivity. This forum will examine and debate productivity performance and policy. Productivity growth is the dominant long-run determinant of improvements in economic wellbeing. However Australia, like other developed countries, has experienced slowing rates of productivity growth in recent years. While the immediate impact of the productivity slowdown on Australian living standards has been temporarily masked by elevated terms of trade, if it continues, it presages a future characterised by slow growth in living standards and ongoing budgetary structural pressures. This forum will examine the recent history of Australia’s productivity performance, and consider the opportunities for productivity enhancing reform and innovation available to government and business across a range of economic activities, sectors, and policy domains.
- Mr Michael Brennan, Chair, Productivity Commission “Advancing prosperity through faster productivity growth”
- Professor Beth Webster, Director, Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology “Productivity growth: What are the big issues?”
- Associate Professor Janine Dixon, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University “Challenges in measuring and modelling productivity”