‘Reform reckoning’? ‘Huge talkfest’? Roundtable anticipation peaks
THE HOPES OF THE ROUNDTABLE
It’s finally upon us: the government’s three-day Economic Reform Roundtable in Canberra begins this morning.
The agenda for the summit has Prime Minister Anthony Albanese beginning proceedings with a 20-minute address to attendees from 8am, followed by remarks from Treasurer Jim Chalmers and then a presentation from the Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock on productivity trends.
Tuesday will see three sessions, titled “International risks, opportunities and trade”, “Skills attraction, development and mobility”, and “Capital attraction and business investment”, before Chalmers wraps up proceedings at the end of the day. Wednesday and Thursday will follow the same format, with sessions on various different themes.
The AAP, for one, is very excited about the roundtable this morning, saying that “after weeks of anticipation … the next chapter of Australia’s economic story is set to be written”. My colleague Bernard Keane wrote yesterday about why he thinks the event has become a “vast gaslighting exercise — and sums up the fatal rot in Australian politics”. Time will soon reveal just how much actual change the event will bring about.
The government is obviously very keen to talk up the gathering and what it believes it can achieve. The AAP carries extracts from Chalmers’ opening remarks in which the treasurer will say the roundtable provides “three days to inform three budgets — and beyond”.
“[The prime minister] has been clear that this is about writing the next chapter of economic reform and I want to acknowledge the leadership he’s shown,” he will add. “We are realistic about the impact of all this, but optimistic too. In this world of churn and change, we like Australia’s chances.”
As has been well documented, Chalmers and the government have been provided with plenty of suggestions on what they could and should do next. The newswire says the treasurer has called for all those invited today “to bring specific ideas and be willing to find common ground”.
In its preview, Guardian Australia asks whether the event will be “a reform reckoning, a massive talkfest or Canberra Coachella 2025?”
The site says the summit, involving business leaders, unions and decision makers, is organised around three themes: resilience, productivity and budget sustainability, and tax reform.
It adds that cutting regulation which is slowing down building approvals, phasing in road user charging rules to cover electric vehicles and potential decisions on the implementation of AI are among the issues the Albanese government is keen to act on this week.
The Australian Financial Review reminds us the event was originally billed as a productivity summit and says it’s a “key part of the government’s long-term strategy to build a national consensus on the path forward for the Australian economy”.
The comprehensive explainer repeats what’s been mentioned every day now, namely that the central theme is tackling declining productivity growth, which has been stagnant for nearly a decade.
Former Productivity Commission chair Michael Brennan told the AAP that Australians needed to be realistic about any reforms coming from this week, but said he was optimistic.
“The structures that the government has put around contributions — that they be specific, budget neutral and focused on the national interest rather than the vested interest — have all improved the quality of the debate,” he said. “I’m hopeful that there will be positive outcomes, but it’s already had a positive impact.”
Speaking of what Australians can expect from the roundtable, the Nine papers have new polling which apparently shows the public wants “important new reforms out of the government’s economic roundtable before the next election, but they draw the line at any move to lift the GST or broaden its scope”.
Meanwhile, the ABC this morning says the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) “is set to loom large over the summit”, saying the sessions on budget sustainability and tax reform on Thursday are expected to examine its rapidly escalating cost.
The broadcaster says those sessions will come a day after Health Minister Mark Butler is expected to make “a significant policy announcement … aimed at tightening elements of the disability insurance scheme”.
NO FIREWORKS THIS TIME AS ZELENSKYY AND TRUMP MEET
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has had a much more traditional meeting with a US president in the Oval Office in the past few hours.
No-one could have forgotten the extraordinary scenes in February when Donald Trump and his Vice President JD Vance ganged up and attacked Zelenskyy — the president of an American ally fighting a war against Russia — after inviting him to Washington.
The ABC reports Monday’s meeting “was very different to the last one” with everyone remaining civil and even a few laughs occurring.
The broadcaster said Zelenskyy “said relatively little, and Trump gave mostly brief and vague answers about the issue at hand”. The report adds that when the Ukrainian president was asked about the type of security guarantees he was after from America, he replied “everything”.
The BBC recalls Trump said America would give Ukraine “very good protection”, but that it was unclear whether that guarantee would be led by NATO or some kind of other involvement from the US.
The 79-year-old also said he didn’t think a ceasefire was necessary, which, as has been pointed out by many, will be welcome news to Putin, and that he plans to speak to the Russian leader after he holds meetings with Zelenskyy and visiting European leaders in the White House.
CNN draws attention to the fact that Zelenskyy, at the start of Monday’s meeting, presented Trump with a letter from his wife Olena to US First Lady Melania Trump. The US broadcaster points out that Melania wrote a letter to Putin last week calling on him to protect “the innocence” of children and “nurture the next generation’s hope”.
The assembled media reportedly laughed when Zelenskyy said to Trump: “My wife, first lady of Ukraine, she gave the letter. It’s not to you — to your wife.”
There were also laughs when the media couldn’t help themselves in drawing attention to the fact the Ukrainian president was wearing a suit to the meeting. Zelenskyy received an apology from Brian Glenn, the reporter who criticised his attire last time, and then pointed out he had changed his outfit but Glenn was still wearing the same suit as in February. The exchange is here.
After the Oval Office exchange, Trump met with Zelenskyy and the European leaders. The BBC reports German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told Trump the meetings on Monday will be “extremely helpful” but called for a ceasefire “sooner rather than later”. French President Emmanuel Macron also said that a ceasefire is a “necessity” and that all the European leaders “support this idea”.
Trump told the Europeans: “All of us would obviously prefer an immediate ceasefire while we work on a lasting peace, and maybe something like that could happen. As of this moment it’s not happening.”
The New York Times points out that in the hours before Zelenskyy’s meeting with Trump, Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and villages killed 14 people and injured dozens.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
It’s only Tuesday but I think we’re going to struggle to find a better headline this week than this one from The Washington Post, which declares: “Stray indoor pig who thinks he’s a dog finally finds a home”.
The piece features Wellington, a 90-pound miniature pig, who had been living at a Maryland animal shelter since June.
Staff say he is “house-trained, comfortable walking on a leash like a dog and could even slip under a blanket to tuck himself in at night. He thrived on affection”, the newspaper reports.
Wellington (called Wellie by the staff) was eventually adopted last month by Mindee Gallagher, who owns a small farm in Little Meadows, Pennsylvania.
Staff at the Anne Arundel County Animal Services shelter said they would “desperately miss” Wellie, but as rescue coordinator Amber Guthrie added: “I truly don’t think I could have asked for a better ending for him.”
The pictures of Wellie at the shelter and his new home are worth your time.
Say What?
How does it bite that much and miss the guy? Insane!
Kelly Slater
The surfing legend was responding to a shark taking an enormous bite out of Cabarita resident Brad Ross’ board on Monday morning. Local authorities said no-one was injured in the incident.
CRIKEY RECAP
How the productivity roundtable became a vast gaslighting exercise — and sums up the fatal rot in Australian politics
While the productivity roundtable may not lead to significant economic reforms, it will effectively serve as a demonstration of the way Australian politics has become a contest of competing vested interests rather than visions of the national interest.
Since Labor announced the roundtable as a post-election sop to answer the incessant clamour to do something about productivity, big business lobby groups, individual business sectors — especially the tech sector, armed with its AI-fueled delusions of grandeur — and trade unions have jointly engaged in a huge exercise in gaslighting Australians. The goal: convince us that “reforms” that just so happen to serve their own interests, or those of the people they represent, or to fit their own ideology, are crucial to fixing productivity.
How Australia’s teen social media ban tech trial was derailed by expert turmoil and secrecy
Resignations, sudden secrecy and a furious ultimatum have roiled Australia’s teen social media ban tech trial, which ended without much fanfare earlier this month.
When the tender was awarded last year, the federal government promoted its $6.5 million Age Assurance Technology Trial in media releases and press conferences as crucial to “determining the most effective way to protect young people online”.
But the trial’s conclusion was ignominiously announced in a short blog post on its website — so quietly that even some of the experts who had spent months advising it were unaware it had ended.
The abundance agenda brainworm has infected Labor’s climate change reform
In America, we’re seeing what happens when you plug the abundance agenda into a fascist wall socket rather than a centrist technocrat one. Klein and Thompson’s language has been used to justify the right-wing fantasy of unregulated data centres and fossil fuel expansion, while the Trump administration actively implements new regulations to block clean energy and transmission lines. WIRED just released a story about how the Trump administration is set to use a language model to automatically search and destroy parts of regulations: it is actually doing the “AI” deregulation thing the Treasury is now only dreaming about. This is the reality of the abundance agenda: more for those with the most, and less for those with the least. Every single letter in the PC’s climate and energy report seems imbued with that philosophy.
It is the worst time to be whispering the worst neoliberal climate policy ideas into the ears of the Albanese government, as it’s desperate to start firing off aesthetically pleasing climate announcements to help aid its quest to host COP31 in 2026. The danger is high also because there is far too much hesitation to push back on these truly awful ideas. Until that changes, the dual threat of offset-driven climate delay and abundance brainworms will keep making things worse.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Wong slams Israel’s ‘unjustified’ visa repeal move (AAP)
Protests highlight growing discontent with Netanyahu and the Gaza war (The New York Times) ($)
‘Business as usual doesn’t cut it’: Greens won’t back Labor’s no-confidence motion (The Mercury) ($)
Judge says record $90m Qantas fine is ‘a message to big business’ (AFR) ($)
Aussie musicians flee Spotify as ARIA shores up awards partnership (The Age) ($)
Barnaby Joyce quits university body to focus on David Littleproud (The Sydney Morning Herald) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
‘Performative remorse’ costs Qantas $90m, as judge questions Hudson no-show – Michael Janda (ABC): Federal Court Justice Michael Lee has called out what many who have dealt with Qantas over a long period of time already know — that it’s an “aggressive” company driven by greed, heavy on spin and light on the truth.
In fining the company $90 million — nearly three-quarters of the maximum civil penalty available — Justice Lee sought to impose a cost that would contribute to cultural change at the airline, and act as a deterrent for the rest of corporate Australia.
Ahead of crucial meeting, Trump and Rubio pull in opposite directions — Michael Koziol (The Sydney Morning Herald): Trump has made clear he does not have a truck in this race. He does not care about Ukraine’s sovereignty and has no interest in making judgments about the right and wrong of the invasion. He seems to genuinely abhor war, but is unwilling to blame Putin for it.
That disinterest may yet enable him to pull off a miracle, but with each instalment of this saga, that feels less likely. As Rubio said on Sunday: “We’re not at the precipice of a peace agreement, we’re not at the edge of one. But I do think progress was made.”
