Productivity profile of Australia

National level: the Productivity Commission, the Treasury and the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources conduct analysis related to productivity issues.

State level (non-exhaustive): Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (New South Wales), New South Wales Productivity Commission, South Australian Productivity Commission, Better Regulation Victoria.

Ad hoc task forces: numerous task forces have been commissioned on policy issues that have strong linkages to productivity (in addition to work commissioned through the Productivity Commission). One example is the ongoing Competition Policy Review (2023).

Productivity Commission: Productivity Inquiry (2023), Productivity Bulletins and Updates (Annual), Productivity Insights series (Periodical), Report on Government Services (Annual), Working from Home (2021), Growing the digital economy in Australia and New Zealand (2019);

Treasury: Reaching for the stars: Australian firms and the global productivity frontier (2022), Product marker power and its implications for the Australian economy (2021), Australian labour force participation: historical trends and future prospects (2021), Measuring productivity dispersion in selected Australian industries (2019), Productivity-enhancing labour reallocation in Australia (2019);

OECD: Economic Surveys Australia (multiple), Economic Policy Reforms 2023: Going for Growth – Australia, Preparing for the Future of Work Across Australia (2021), The COVID-19 shock and productivity-enhancing reallocation in Australia: Real-time evidence from Single Touch Payroll (2021), Indigenous Employment and Skills Strategies in Australia (2019), Financial Incentives to Promote Adult Learning in Australia (2019).

Enhance the allocation of resources by promoting skills and labour mobility:

• Encourage the effective use of digital tools and evidence-based strategies in schools.
• Provide all teachers with access to high-quality and evidence-based curriculum resources that are regularly updated.
• Better engage the business sector in designing vocational education courses.
• Undertake a comprehensive review of the occupational licensing system.
• Improve data collection on occupational licensing regimes across the country and information exchange systems between jurisdictions.
• Make the composition of the skilled migrant intake more responsive to changes in the skill needs of industry, including through better use of timely and granular data, analysis and the views of employers.
• Continue to replace state-based transaction taxes on real estate with a recurrent land tax.

Foster a competitive business environment by strengthening competition and economic activity:

• Undertake regular reviews of the National Anti-Corruption Commission to ensure it is adequately resourced and has sufficient legislated powers.
• Consider requiring companies to give pre-merger notification to the competition authority for transactions above a defined threshold and introducing divestiture as a legislated remedy.
• Introduce greater flexibility in zoning systems, moving to fewer zone types which are less prescriptive about the types of activities that can be undertaken.
• Ensure the incentives faced by local government encourage land development processes and decisions that are consistent with state development plans.
• Explore pathways to further align product standards with those agreed in other advanced economies.