The Latest Breaking News from Productivity Commission

This week’s appointment of Wayne Swan’s former chief of staff Chris Barrett to head the Productivity Commission puts the annual Trade and Assistance Review it released this month under a more searching spotlight than usual. Remarkably, the Commission used the review to target one of the key policies on which…

This week’s appointment of Wayne Swan’s former chief of staff Chris Barrett to head the Productivity Commission puts the annual Trade and Assistance Review it released this month under a more searching spotlight than usual.

Governments have failed to properly share decision-making with Indigenous people to accelerate Closing the Gap, despite formally undertaking to do so, according to a scathing indictment by the Productivity Commission.

Reform of the productivity commission will be led by Victorian Treasury deputy secretary Chris Barrett, which will include a refocus towards the “vast, industrial, and productivity opportunities of the energy transformation”. Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced the appointment on Monday and confirmed that the Treasury has undertaken months of “detailed and…

Chalmers announces Barrett, deputy secretary of Victoria’s treasury and finance department, will begin his five-year appointment from September

Australian battery industry stakeholders have rejected the Productivity Commission’s doubts on the effectiveness of industry support, with one innovation expert describing it’s claims as “tiresomely predictable”. Released on Thursday, the Productivity Commision’s (PC) report argued that if the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act is successful in driving rapid growth in…

Shrink union membership and reduce the ability to strike and you provide a double whammy to hopes for better wages

Since 2005, annual labour productivity growth (growth in output per hour worked) has been the best part of one percentage point below its long-term average in Australia and other developed countries.

The slide in Australia’s labour productivity – real gross domestic product per hour worked – has become a real concern. In the past year, labour productivity has fallen 4.6%.

Productivity Commission chair Michael Brennan will not seek reappointment when his five-year term ends in September, with a merit-based recruitment process underway to find a replacement. Mr Brennan was appointed chair in September 2018, having previously served as Commonwealth Treasury fiscal group deputy secretary and Victorian Department of Treasury and…

Parents in this remote region in WA face wait times of up to two years for childcare, due to a shortage of qualified staff that's having a huge impact on the community.