Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ roundtable is finally upon us — starting Tuesday, for three days, 23 participants will discuss economic resilience, productivity, and tax reform. If you’re looking for more key figures related to the discussions, don’t miss our Paint by Numbers piece from last week.
Can’t wait for the discussions to begin? Productivity commissioner Danielle Wood will address the National Press Club today at 12.30pm. As readers of our Worm newsletter already know, Wood will argue that Australia has “ended up with a system that dampens growth” because of a tendency to rely on “our ‘Canberra fix’”.
Political editor Bernard Keane recently shared his thoughts on Australia’s productivity challenge, writing last Friday: “The Productivity Commission, Treasury and now the Reserve Bank have all confirmed that a big part of Australia’s productivity challenge is declining competition and the ability of large, oligopolistic firms to increase their mark-ups, or the amount of profit they can make off each product.”
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The launch of the roundtable will coincide with what’s known as Equal Pay Day. According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, that day “marks the end of the 50 additional days into the new financial year that women in Australia need to work to earn the same pay, on average, as men”. The agency has a calculator on its website for anyone who wants to figure out when their individual equal pay day will be.
Tuesday also marks the return of the Tasmanian Parliament, for the first time since July’s snap election (ahead of the vote, our readers’ editor Crystal Andrews wrote a helpful piece on what was at stake). On Tuesday, Premier Jeremy Rockliff will be welcomed back with a motion of no confidence in his minority government. As ABC News reports this morning: “Tasmanian MPs will decide a debate that has raged for months: Who should govern the state?”
On Friday, Governor-General Sam Mostyn will deliver a speech to Diversity Council Australia, reflecting on her first year in office. To get in the anniversary spirit, read reporter-at-large Charlie Lewis’ thoughts on Mostyn’s call for a return to civility, published last November (spoiler alert: it may be that Australia never had a “golden age of civility and restraint”, as Lewis put it). Or why not read Esther Anatolitis, co-chair of the Australian Republican Movement, on her reasons for feeling proud when Mostyn was sworn in?
On Sunday, the same pro-Palestinian group that organised the earlier Sydney Harbour Bridge march will seek to gather people in cities across Australia to once again protest Israel’s war in Gaza. After the bridge march, Crikey’s readers sent us their reflections on what they experienced, which you can read here.