Productivity Solutions Missing From Recent Jobs Summit: Economist

“A lot of productivity stems from innovation in business and entrepreneurship—and that comes down to how many risks you’re willing to take.”

The recent Jobs and Skills Summit lacked something vital: A real solution to long-term productivity in Australia. Certain small "fixes", such as throwing money at creating "free" training opportunities and upping the annual migrant intake may sell votes but they won't address productivity in the long run. Stage three tax cuts - set to start in 2024 - have the potential to reinvigorate the country's productivity.

READ MORE: Incentives matter: Australia's tax policy cannot be based on dodgy statistics

Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance Chief Economist Dr John Humphreys spoke to the Epoch Times about the Jobs and Skills Summit, discussing how true productivity reform relied on income tax cuts.

Daniel Y. Teng writes for the Epoch Times

While the recently concluded Jobs and Skills Summit saw the prime minister announce an increase in Australia’s migration intake and nearly half a million free TAFE training positions, it failed to offer a true long-term productivity solution, according to one economist.

“The first, second, and third priority of the Summit was productivity, productivity, and productivity—and there wasn’t a lot of that being discussed,” said John Humphreys, chief economist of the Australian Taxpayers Alliance.

“The fact that’s not being discussed means they might come up with a few little ideas that are nice in the short run, but they’re not fixing the underlying problem,” he told The Epoch Times.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese chose the Summit as the opportunity to lock-in several slated policies to deal with worker shortages in the Australian economy, including upping the annual migrant intake from 160,000 to 195,000 a year and allowing retirees to work extra hours without having their pensions impacted.

Read the full story at the Epoch Times.