Living in Australia is just less fair than it used to be

But will the Albanese government spend the next three years using its thumping majority to lead bold reforms or deliver damp squib solutions?

Next week's productivity roundtable will reveal which path the Prime Minister intends to tread, and so far, it looks like all it's set to do is weaken environment laws and delay big tax reforms until after the next election.

Between the Treasury advice leaked to the ABC and the Prime Minister ruling out any major tax reforms before the next election, the government poured a bucket of cold water on any real excitement building for the productivity roundtable.

And the productivity roundtable has a big job ahead of it. Australia doesn't just have a productivity problem, it has a revenue problem.

Australia is one of the lowest-taxing countries in the developed world. In fact, if Australia collected the OECD average in tax - not the highest amount, just the average - the Commonwealth would have had an extra $140 billion in revenue in 2023-24.

To put that in perspective, it's equivalent to the combined cost of the aged pension, the NDIS, Jobseeker, and the child care subsidy, along with the total government spending on housing, vocational education, and both the ABC and SBS. It's clear that bold tax reforms are necessary.

Despite being a low-tax country, Australia is still one of the richest countries on Earth. Yet many people's living standards have been going backwards.

Why? Lots of reasons. The Coalition enacted policies that deliberately kept wages low. So, when excessive corporate profits drove inflation after the pandemic, the cost of everyday living rose faster than people's paychecks could keep up.

Allowing multinational gas companies to export 80 per cent of Australia's gas tripled domestic gas prices and doubled wholesale electricity prices on the east coast of Australia. Climate change-fuelled extreme weather is driving up insurance costs and premiums.

The cost of buying a house is now out of reach for most young people, and the cost of renting has skyrocketed, too. This is how most people experience an increase in inequality - your paycheck doesn't go as far as it used to.

But those everyday cost-of-living increases obscure a larger truth about the Australian economy.

It's just less fair than it used to be. It used to be that a rising tide lifted all boats. When the economy grew, Australians all shared the benefits.

If you imagine Australian economic growth were a cake shared between 10 people, in the decades after World War II, the bottom 90 per cent of Australians used to get 9 pieces of cake, leaving one piece for the top 10 per cent.

In the decade after the Global Financial Crisis, the richest person at the table ate nine pieces of cake, and the bottom 90 per cent of people shared less than one piece of cake between them. It's hugely unfair.

There's not much point boosting productivity if a majority of working people don't get to share in the benefits.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is keen to have that debate. He described the game of ruling things in or out as "cancerous" and vowed to dial up Labor's ambition for bold reforms.

And let's be clear, to reverse that path of Australia's growing inequality will require bold tax reforms. It's clear the Treasurer understands that, as well as several of the roundtable invitees, who want tax reform on the agenda at the productivity roundtable.

The ACTU submission included several tax reforms, including to negative gearing and the CGT discount, but also reforming the broken Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) and replacing it with a new 25 per cent export levy on gas.

Negative gearing together with the CGT discount has so warped our housing market, many young Australians have given up on every owning their own home. But it looks like the PM has put off reforming those distortionary tax concessions until his next term of government.

He keeps hosing down suggestions for progressive tax reforms. To hear the Prime Minister rule out any major tax reforms before the next election is not just disappointing, it's irresponsible.

There are also reports that the government is considering introducing road user charges for electric vehicles only. If we're talking road user charges, it would make sense to include heavy vehicles, which do so much damage to our roads - a vehicle that's twice the weight of a regular vehicle does 16 times the damage to the road. But heavy vehicles don't pay anything extra for that damage. But will heavy vehicles be included in any new road user charges? Doesn't look like it.

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The fact that Labor is considering slugging electric vehicle drivers with a new tax, while doing nothing to stop half of Australia's gas being exported royalty-free, tells you everything you need to know. Big tax reforms are on the table for electric vehicles, but off the table for the gas industry.

Yet, according to the Treasury advice leaked to the ABC, the government will consider other major reforms. For example, it will weaken - sorry, "streamline" - our national environment laws to make development easier. And it will consider cutting "red tape" by freezing changes to the National Construction Code.

Labor has a thumping majority in the lower house and it can pass progressive reforms through the Senate with the support of the Greens any time it wants.

Instead, the government's productivity agenda seems to be to weaken environment laws, tax clean vehicles, cut red tape for property developers and leave the difficult tax reforms until after the next election.

It's a far cry from Albanese's promise in Labor's election platform, to be a government "as courageous and hardworking and caring as the Australian people are themselves."