Chris Richardson

And that productivity fail is a prosperity fail is what's got us, I think, in many ways into this current mess.

Well, it is about something in particular.

It is about wages relative to prices.

So, you know, all nations have a personal tax take.

Ours is relatively high and, you know, it has increased a bit over the longer term.

But it's not personal tax.

that has been make or break for our lack of prosperity growth for a long time.

Wages haven't gone faster than prices, and people love to reach for all sorts of conspiracy theories around that, but it goes back to the productivity thing that I said.

We are not making great use of new technologies.

We are not investing in stuff.

I don't mean the financial investments.

I mean the

you know, the road, the rail, the factory, the computer, the whatever else.

And that combination, you know, we're not using our skills as well as we could, we are not using our built environment out there as well as we could, means that we are not advancing at the rate that a bunch of other nations are advancing.

If you look across the OECD,

We're still, in terms of the increase in our living standards over the past decade, we're still beating the POMs.

And it always, you know, it's nice to do.

But they are essentially bottom of the list, right?

And under US, top of the list in terms of gains in its living standards.

And I do think Australia can and should do better.