The living standards of the average Australian citizen are falling. Per capita GDP, the measure of wealth accumulated by individual Australians has been on the decline for some years now. The government may protest that GDP is increasing but that is only because of high levels of migration. But high levels of migration mean that our wealth has to be shared by more people, many of whom don’t contribute to creating it!

Underlying this parlous position are two major government policy errors:

1. Facilitating excess levels of immigration, and
2. Failing to increase levels of productivity

Here the government seems to be caught in a real political dilemma.

Whilst increasing numbers of immigrants strains our infrastructure (particularly with respect to housing) the government perceives that these new immigrants, particularly from Muslim countries, augment their political base. But many of these immigrants believe in ideologies that run counter to our underlying Western values, and this is challenging the traditional values that underpin our liberal democratic society.

On the other hand doing something significant to improve productivity often alienates its union base. The ethos of the union movement seems to be we should do as little work as possible and impede the application of new productivity-enhancing technologies like AI. That is not the road to prosperity but to impecunity!

It would seem that the union movement wants to compel employers to hire as many people as possible pay them as much as possible and have them work as little as possible. Indeed their fundamental raison d’etre is antithetical to labour productivity.

The ACTU’s breathtaking proposal for the recent economic roundtable to consider is to move to a four day week with no loss of pay!

These productivity throttling strategies will ensure the demise of Australia in economic terms.

This “magic pudding” thinking ignores the real underpinnings of wealth creation.

The Industrial Revolution began the exponential increase in wealth in the West. New technology stimulated huge increases in productivity. But probably just as important it was underpinned by the so-called “protestant work ethic”. This had its basis in the accepted fact that mankind could find meaning and dignity in work.

Contrast this with the ethos of the union movement which proposes that work has no inherent value besides earning a pay packet. It proposes that work is something we reluctantly participate in merely to earn a living. If possible it is something to be avoided.

Yet I have argued for many years that work, for many of us, is a source of meaning and purpose in our lives. Now, I say this not as some philosophical conjecture but from my own lived experience. As a manager I was able to run an enterprise with half the number of employees as my competitors. What’s more regular job satisfaction surveys proved my employees, far from being overworked, were happier in their work than their contemporaries in other workplaces.

There is a lot of literature to support the notion that unemployment is bad for people not only for its loss of economic security but because it challenges a person’s sense of identity. For example when you go to a party and meet new people invariably you are asked “What do you do?” It is demeaning to have to reply, “I am unemployed. I don’t do anything!”

Early in my career I volunteered to take over a poor performing workplace that was dominated by unions. Whilst I was able to turn this workplace around quite significantly, in the end it was unable to compete with newer enterprises that had the benefit of more modern technology. As a consequence my establishment was partially closed resulting in making 50% of the workforce redundant. That was a traumatic experience both for the workforce and me. Fortunately we were able to place our redundant employees in other workplaces and some were happy just to take their redundancy payout and take their chances in their pursuit of new employment.

But after that experience I resolved that any future enterprise I managed must have two essential characteristics:

1. Be as productive and competitive as possible to secure the long term future of my employees, and just as importantly,
2. Be a good place to work.

So it is my firm belief that we can enhance labour productivity whilst also improving our workplaces so that they are better places to work.

But if we are to talk seriously about economic reform, how can we do that without talking about the cost of energy. Energy underpins any modern society and providing low cost energy is an essential to ensuring a productive economy.

I have written many times before about the futility of pursuing the Net Zero emissions target. Whilst the government’s futile attempts to achieve this impossible fantasy is beginning to meet many roadblocks, Chris Bowen merely redoubles his efforts resulting in higher and higher electricity charges.

We are seeing more and more renewable projects that Bowen was relying on, either fail or be withdrawn. Analysts report that since the start of the year at least 14 renewable project approvals have been cancelled.

Two areas of particular concern are off-shore wind projects and his much vaunted hydrogen projects. These classes of projects are, if you understand the inherent engineering and scientific limitations are problematic to say the least!

All the while this rush to renewables continues to increase our electricity prices and consequently weighs down heavily on our productivity and competitiveness.

Even though this is a hugely important issue, it was not addressed at the government’s economic roundtable. This is a disaster because as is now commonly said, “Energy is the economy!”

Albanese and Bowen say how well blessed Australia is with solar and wind resources. But these things are ubiquitous to varying degrees in many nations. Where Australia is truly blessed is by the fact we have abundant resources of coal, gas and uranium – but the government prevents us using them to recover our international competitiveness because of their insane obsession with renewable energy. On our current trajectory we will be reliant on unreliable and costly renewable energy whilst our living standards plummet. We will be ideologically pure but we will be poor!

Despite all its virtue signalling, the Albanese government will not meet Net Zero targets and trying to hit them will waste billions, weaken our electricity grid and put further imposts on the poor.

The Net Zero proposition was stimulated by apocalyptic prognostications from its zealous adherents. Fortunately for us (and unfortunately for them) most of their doomsday predictions have failed to eventuate. Moreover whilst the climate change zealots have been busy scaring the daylights out of our children, many of whom have come to believe that life on earth will come to be problematic within the lifespan of their generation (which is a preposterous conclusion), increasing levels of CO²has provided a beneficial effect with large parts of the globe experiencing a consequential “greening”.

In doubling down on their rush to renewable energy, the government is seeking to ensure that project approvals for new renewable proposals are expedited despite growing concerns about their environmental impacts. On the other hand, the projects that might actually reduce our electricity prices and enhance our export earnings – new gas and coal projects – are subject to the most stringent conditions!

Since I commenced this essay the economic roundtable led by Jim Chalmers has completed its task. And what have been the outcomes? Really nothing of significance! It seems the major objective in convening the roundtable was to seek justification for already predetermined positions of the government mainly relating to taxation. It seems inevitable that the government will impose some form of wealth tax. Meanwhile it has made no effort on the other side of the ledger to reduce its profligate spending.

There seems to have been little discussion on the issues that might actually make a difference, eg immigration, and those things that matter most for productivity such as energy costs, deregulation of labour laws, removing disincentives to investment and so on.

On this trajectory it won’t be long before the so-called “lucky country” becomes the “impoverished country”!