Thursday, 15 May 2025

Economy

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (02:11): (1638) My adjournment matter is for the Treasurer, and what I am asking from the Treasurer is to perhaps finally at some point, please, please, in the next budget have a policy that relates to productivity, because there has no been no serious policy for productivity in this state for a decade. The consequences when you do not address productivity in a state are that the state loses a number of things. It loses competitiveness in the first place. We are now in a record trade deficit of $92 billion in this state because we are not competitive. We are losing businesses to other states because we are not competitive in any of our tax structures and in our productivity. The other consequence of not pursuing productivity is you lose economic growth, and the only economic growth we have had in this state for some time has been driven by population growth; we do not have per capita growth.

The other consequence of not pursuing productivity is that we do not build wealth for the next generation, and this tends to compound. It compounds in the slowness of our generation of intellectual property and the slowness in our adoption of technology. We had a debate here yesterday where were talking about EVs and maybe needing to have a structure around EVs, and I sat there almost wanting to blow my brains out, because it was like listening to a Ted Talk from 2005 – you know, 2005 rang in and they wanted their thought leadership back, because that was about 2005 thinking. It made me despair for the state, because by the time we get around to talking about AI and automation it will be 2035 and the horse will have well and truly bolted for this state. But this is what happens when you rip billions and billions of dollars from businesses’ working capital to fund ludicrous nonproductive projects such as the Suburban Rail Loop and other infrastructure projects that do not generate wealth. This is what happens. You would not need to be taxing farmers to pay for fire trucks if you were generating wealth from it.

The action I seek from the Treasurer is to please incorporate productivity measures in this budget – and I mean genuine ones, not subsidies for costs, not embarrassing attempts at being a VC through entities like Breakthrough Victoria and the SEC, which is a venture capital program we have put in the constitution, bizarrely, and not self-indulgent funding for state enterprises and lazy joint ventures with universities. Please address the state’s productivity.