Source: Prime Minister of Australia
begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging.
Every year, CEDA’s State of the Nation Conference invites all of us caught up in the busy rush of a Parliamentary sitting week, to take a breath.
To zoom out from the day to day, hour by hour, minute by minute political contest, and look to the long term.
CEDA frames its work around the Australia of 2050.
In our democracy, where three-year terms are short and the media cycle is much shorter, when there are always new challenges emerging and different issues competing for attention, a quarter century into the future can seem impossibly distant.
But the Australia of 2050 is not a remote prospect.
Our future prosperity, growth and productivity will be shaped by changes underway around our world right now.
The global shift to clean energy.
The transformative impact of Artificial Intelligence.
The use of international supply chains as instruments of economic and strategic competition.
And, every bit as importantly, the Australia of 2050 will be defined by how we respond to this changing world.
Because if we act now, if we back ourselves, if we work together to shape the future, rather than waiting for the future to shape us, then Australia can do more than find a way through this period of global uncertainty, we can emerge stronger, fairer, more resilient and more prosperous.
We can build on our global leadership in clean energy and use it to power a new generation of Australian manufacturing.
We can bring our national values of fairness and opportunity to AI, so that it grows our economy and strengthens our sovereignty, without fragmenting our society or damaging our environment.
And we can own our place in the architecture of the fastest region of the world in human history.
Stabilising our relationship with China, deepening our investment in South East Asia, elevating our ties with India.
Making ourselves the security partner of choice for the Pacific.
And the report that CEDA published this week is right: Australia cannot drift our way into those opportunities, we have to seize them.
And just as the choices we make today will shape the decades ahead.
We must also deal with the consequences of choices made decades ago.
The changes that John Howard and Peter Costello made to capital gains tax and its interaction with negative gearing were supposed to boost investment in the share market.
Instead, they turbocharged property as an investment vehicle.
So while the percentage of Australians who own shares has actually fallen compared to a quarter century ago, house prices have risen by 400 per cent in the same period, more than twice as fast as incomes.
We know supply is a key part of the solution – which is why we have thrown everything at it over the past four years:
Our $47 billion Homes for Australia plan, has provided:
New incentives for the states to speed up approvals and unlock land.
New funding for connecting infrastructure.
Free TAFE and $10,000 payments for construction and electrical apprenticeships.
Building new social and affordable housing, through the Housing Australia Future Fund.
Help to Buy, Build to Rent – and 5 per cent deposits.
All of this has made a difference.
Yet there were still too many young Australians who were doing everything right: working hard, making sacrifices, but missing out at auctions because property investors could outbid them, knowing they had those tax breaks giving them an advantage over owner-occupiers.
The easy political option in that situation is to kick the can down the road.
To try and explain away, or work around, a system that isn’t working.
And while that might be the easy choice – it’s not the right one.
The privilege of serving in Government demands more of you than that.
It is not enough to acknowledge people’s frustration – you have to act on it.
You can’t just nod along while young Australians tell you that the deck is stacked against them, you have to do something to give them a fair crack.
That is the choice our Government has made.
And when we embarked on this journey, we did not imagine for a moment that it would be all smooth sailing.
We knew there would be the usual political attacks.
Some of us remember the campaign that argued the introduction of Fringe Benefits Tax would shut the doors of every restaurant, pub and hospitality venue in the country.
Equally, we understood there would be consultation required and improvements to make.
We specifically flagged that in the Budget papers.
Which is why in addition to retaining all four capital gains tax concessions for small business.
We have also expanded the threshold for the most frequently used carve-out, to cover all businesses with up to $10 million in turnover.
That represents 98 per cent of all active businesses in the nation – and every active small business in Australia.
In addition to this, in the months ahead, we will continue to consult with the start-up sector on a new Innovative Business CGT Concession.
All of these improvements are a credit to the constructive engagement of the business community.
That’s the way our Government operates – and it is the way reform should work.
Consensus does not mean beginning with 100 per cent agreement – or arriving at it.
It means listening, negotiating – and moving forward to an outcome.
That’s what we will continue to do, across our agenda.
Yet as with last year’s reforms to the EPBC Act, where it was obvious the system was not working for anyone, the Opposition have chosen irrelevance, they have dealt themselves out of the process.
And this time around they have gone beyond defending a status quo that is failing people – they are now promising to re-impose it.
To bring back the distortions that have locked young people out of the housing market.
They want to repeat the mistakes of decades past, we are fixing them – in housing and across the economy.
Because the global turbulence of the 2020s has exposed the mindset which told Australians it was smart and rational and efficient to offshore manufacturing.
To cut skills and TAFE.
Close refineries.
Narrow our industrial base.
And privatise national assets.
Because the stable, predictable expansion of globalisation would pick up the slack.
That someone else, somewhere else, would be able to sell us what we needed cheaper than we could make it ourselves.
It is crystal clear that this old economic model is not suited to the world we are in, nor fit for the future ahead.
The Australia of 2050 will be shaped by what we build in its place.
By the lessons we learn from what the world has thrown at us.
By the action we take to seize the opportunities the world holds for us.
And by the reforms we drive to deliver real change.
Boosting productivity is critical to this.
That’s why we are cutting red tape, speeding-up approvals and abolishing hundreds of nuisance tariffs.
Creating a single, national market for skills, so state borders don’t stand in the way of businesses finding and hiring the right workers.
All of this is about incentivising business investment – and converting that into stronger growth and better wages.
The National Accounts show that business investment as a share of the Australian economy is at its highest level in nearly a decade.
Australia is growing faster than almost every other advanced major economy – and that growth is being led by the private sector.
We’re building an economy that is more productive – and more resilient.
So we are better prepared for the next global shock and better placed to make the most of our natural advantages.
Combining Australian ideas and Australian skills to turn the traditional resources, critical minerals and rare earths that the world needs into products the world wants.
Above all, our goal is to build an economy that works for people, not the other way around.
One that upholds our national values of fairness, opportunity and aspiration for all.
That is the optimism, the determination and the belief in Australia that underpins our Government’s agenda, even in these times of global uncertainty.
It is extraordinary to think that in the 2020s, Australians have already had to deal with four global crises in six years:
A once-in-a-century pandemic.
The highest global inflation since the 1980s.
A land war in Europe, leading to the biggest international energy crisis since the 1970s.
And the biggest spike in petrol and diesel prices, ever – which we know is putting pressure on inflation here, and around the world.
I understand that for workers and businesses trying to manage the combined impact of these economic shocks, planning for the future can sound like a luxury.
But in a world of rapid change, our country cannot wait and hope for a moment of calm and quiet before we look ahead.
Instead, we have to deal with the challenges of the here and now – in a way that anticipates and creates the future we want to build.
That is the approach that defines our Government.
You’ve seen it again through this global fuel crisis.
Helping Australians under immediate pressure – by working with the states and territories to cut fuel taxes.
And now extending that relief through to the 2nd of August.
But also stepping up our engagement with our partners in our region.
And empowering Export Finance Australia to secure shiploads of additional petrol, diesel and fertiliser for our farmers, miners, truckies and tradies.
If this Conference had been held in March, there would have been questions about when we would move to fuel rationing.
That’s what was being asked in the Parliament, on an almost daily basis.
There is more fuel in Australia today, than when the conflict in the Middle East began.
And our Budget built on those efforts by investing over $10 billion in long term fuel security, storage and production.
Our action on the cost of living continues next Wednesday, the 1st of July:
Another real increase in the minimum wage.
Another tax cut for every single taxpayer – with more on the way next year.
When we were elected, the first marginal tax rate was 19 cents on the dollar.
Next year it will be down to 14 cents.
That will work together with our $1000 Instant Tax Deduction, which not only simplifies the system and boosts productivity, it also means millions of low and middle income earners will get more of their money back at tax time next year.
And these tax cuts will be followed by our new $250 Working Australians Tax Offset.
Part of the work we are doing to rebalance the tax system.
Better aligning the way we treat income earned from work, compared to income derived from assets.
Because most Australians have nothing to sell but their time, nothing to give but their hard work.
That’s how they earn a living, that’s how they put food on the table – by going to work, every day.
And they deserve a tax cut – and the opportunity to buy a first home.
On the 1st of July, we are also expanding Paid Parental Leave to a full six months.
And making the 137 Urgent Care Clinics that we promised – and have now opened – a permanent part of Medicare.
Taking pressure off public hospitals and ensuring more Australians than ever can get free healthcare, close to home.
Next week will also mark one year since the launch of our Cheaper Home Batteries program.
Our initial goal was one million new batteries by 2030.
We have already seen an extraordinary 450,000 installed.
Families and small businesses taking up the opportunity to permanently cut their power bills.
And – across the nation – it is overwhelmingly the regions and outer suburbs leading the charge.
Australia was already the world leader in rooftop solar.
Our scientific breakthroughs made it possible – and our sunny skies make it practical.
We are now ranked third in the world for battery storage too – behind only the United States and China.
On a per capita basis, we are way ahead.
And the benefits of Australians embracing this technology are beginning to flow through to the energy market as a whole, reducing demand in the evening peak.
The three right wing parties have been pushing the same arguments against renewables, with the same slogans, for two decades now.
And every year, as the technology gets more efficient and more affordable, that ideology becomes less convincing.
Because on roads and rooftops right around our country, people are making practical choices, not political statements.
And it is not just individuals voting with their feet.
Some of the biggest users of energy – from the Boyne Aluminium Smelter in Gladstone to Microsoft’s new data centres in New South Wales – are embracing and investing in reliable, affordable renewables.
We are determined to ensure these large-scale projects contribute to our national energy security – and drive downward pressure on power bills, for everyone.
We will continue to look at every responsible option to shield Australians from global uncertainty and help people doing it tough.
At the same time, we recognise that the frustration many Australians are feeling runs deeper than any particular cost pressure.
It is the bigger sense that the economy isn’t working for them.
That their hard work isn’t paying off.
And that their children, the next generation of Australians, won’t have the same opportunities that they did.
That it will be harder for them to find a rewarding career, buy a home, start a family, build a good life.
That sentiment hasn’t sprung up overnight. It’s built up, over decades.
And while there might be some who treat it as a political opportunity – I take it as a practical challenge.
Because Australians’ frustration with the system is more than an emotional reaction, or an ideological one.
It is practical, it’s tangible – and so are the solutions we are providing.
That starts with a wage you can live on, a job you can count on, being able to pay your bills, afford the medicine you need and provide for your family.
And it is the economic and social fabric that we take pride in, as Australians.
The things that bring us together as a country – and set us apart from the world.
Bulk-billing through Medicare.
Quality public education, at every stage of learning.
Dignity and security in retirement.
The aspiration of home ownership.
That’s the true test for parties of government.
The capacity to deliver real change, when and where it really matters.
Making a positive difference to people’s lives by undertaking the hard work of structural reform.
And tackling the big changes that have been put off for too long.
That’s why we are reforming the energy market, aged care, education, employment services, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, skills and migration – and the tax system.
So they are right for the times – and ready for the future.
People can go a long way in politics, for a long time, by raging against the system that they are a part of.
But none of that takes our country anywhere – or changes anything.
Real change means boosting wages and cutting taxes.
Powering new jobs and backing small business.
Making it easier to see a doctor for free – and making sure every Australian child gets the best start in life.
Investing in the skills and technology that will enable our workers and businesses to shape the future.
And helping the next generation put a roof over their head.
This is the real change that matters to Australians.
It is the real change we will continue to deliver.