Gareth Hutchins

In their 2023 budget, there was a special chapter in there Treasury officials wrote where they

Jim Chalmers had asked them to talk about what they think, say, the three biggest long-term trends are that are both hitting Australia's economy and is coming from Australia's economy that will be affecting everybody's lives over the next 20 years.

And they talked about the ageing population and the growth of the care economy, so aged care, social care, childcare.

AI and technology, and then climate change and the energy transition.

Now, this was three years ago.

If you go back and read that chapter, we're still dealing with that now, obviously, because they're long-term trends that we're living with.

And so they have been thinking in these long-term terms for years.

It's not that this has just come out of nowhere.

Yes, Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have been hit by this war over in the Middle East, but it doesn't affect all the other long-term trends that were hitting the economy.

It's just that what's happening over there and the global energy shock that it's hit off means that it's almost going to hasten the pace with which we go through the energy transition here.

I was speaking to a guy at a car dealership and he said that he's already got the next three months of his stock.

So he can sit back and relax.

So there's been a lot of interest in EVs.

So it's just hastening that transition in that point.

Hugely, especially when the population is demanding it.

We have an ageing population.

So that care economy, the growth in the care economy is not going away.

The growth in aged care workers is not going away.

So where do you find it?

They've managed to find some cuts in the NDIS that were $15 billion worth over the next four years.