Jim Chalmers promises tax reform, faster approvals, road user charges after three days of talks

Jim Chalmers has committed to tackle tax reform, speed up an overhaul of environmental-approval laws, shift towards road-user charges, and take a national approach to artificial intelligence at the end of his three-day economic roundtable.

The Treasurer finished 29 hours of discussion and 327 contributions from the summit’s participants with a list of 10 quick wins and another 10 longer-term reform priorities.

And despite a flare-up with Coalition rival Ted O’Brien on the final morning, Dr Chalmers attested to the collegiate nature of the Cabinet room event.

“I finished those three days more optimistic about the progress that we can make together than I was at the start,” he said during a press conference on Thursday evening.

“People came with their ideas. They came with a lot of goodwill, a lot of expertise, a lot of experience. And they provided their views to us in very generous ways.”

There was “more appetite for reform in more areas” than he had anticipated going in, and he now wants to capitalise on that momentum.

Environment Minister Murray Watt will be charged with accelerating the EPBC legislation he is currently working on. The West reported last week Senator Watt was expected to put legislation up before Christmas.

He and Housing Minister Clare O’Neil will also tackle a backlog of some 30,000 houses awaiting environmental approvals, and there will be moves to simplify the national construction code.

State Treasurers will meet on September 5 to consider options for road-user charges after the roundtable reached broad consensus on the principle that change was needed as the take-up of electric vehicles erodes fuel excise income.

Most surprising was a commitment to broad tax reform to address intergenerational inequity, better incentivise business investment and make the system simpler and more sustainable.

Dr Chalmers said the tax system was “imperfect” and the Government would work further with those in the roundtable room on changes.

“There were a lot of ideas raised, some of them not consistent with each other . . . even if you wanted to, you couldn’t do everything that people pitched up in the room,” he said.

“And really, the spirit in the room was to try and help government make the kind of tax reforms that would be helpful.”

Business groups were pleased with the clear commitment and pledged to work constructively.

“What we got out of today and the past couple of days is a clear intent to tackle some of the bigger, thornier issues that the country is confronting,” Austrian Industry Group head Innes Willox said.

“It’s been a very productive three days. It’s easy to be cynical that not much was achieved, or we should have done more, or we haven’t upended the world and made things easier. We’ve started a pathway of making Australia a better place to work and to invest.”

Grattan Institute chief executive Aruna Sathanapally told the roundtable that Australia could do much better at having a tax system that worked efficiently, fairly and was simple for people and businesses to comply with.

“The longer we wait, the more ill-fitting our tax system is going to be, and the harder this task gets,” she warned.

Few thought the group would ever reach consensus on a single direction for tax reform.

However, Dr Chalmers certainly has no shortage of ideas to choose from.

“I think you can safely say that all the taxes have probably been mentioned by now . . . we’re looking at consumption taxes, income taxes, wealth taxes, property taxes,” ACOSS chief executive Cassandra Goldie said.

“It’s a launchpad for collaborative work going forward,” was the verdict from Matthew Addison, the head of the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Bran Black said the sector’s tests for success in tax reform would remain whether changes increased business investment.

“This has been an important process, and most importantly, it sets us a bit of a course for how we can go about progressing real action over the course of the next months and years ahead. It’s time for the rubber to hit the road,” he said.

An argument between Mr O’Brien and Dr Chalmers over government spending grabbed the headlines on the final day of the economic roundtable, when the toughest topics were dealt with.

“There is a spending spree which is not sustainable. The government has thrown away the rule book. The government needs to reintroduce rules to control spending, and I’m hopeful that the Treasurer might take that advice,” Mr O’Brien said at the end of the day.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus called it “a political exchange . . . that felt a bit like question time” and said the rest of those in the room thought it wasn’t the time or place.

“It was like, ‘OK guys, like, you can do that in question time, the rest of us don’t get to do that,’” she said.

That spat aside, to the surprise of many, the whole exercise has proven largely collegiate and full of goodwill.

Multiple participants said afterwards the time spent in the Cabinet room had been worthwhile.

The ACTU and Tech Council have come to a semi-agreement to talk further about how creatives, journalists and academics can be compensated when AI uses their work.

“We are hopeful we can find a path forward on copyright that allows AI training to take place in Australia while also including appropriate protections for creators that make a living from their work,” Tech Council chief executive Damian Kassabgi said.

The Government showed its own willingness to give ground on spending midway through the process.

Mark Butler’s surprise move to massively rein in the NDIS eligibility and further cut the growth rate of the ballooning scheme and Tanya Plibersek’s quiet announcement to end a five-year freeze on pension deeming rates both help the bottom line.

Dr Chalmers said that of the seven big pressures on the budget, five were related to the care economy, including the NDIS, and described the spending side of the budget as key.

“If you think about spending and you think about revenue, it’s really us recognising that when it comes to budget repair over the medium term, we know that it’s not just about pulling one lever and ignoring the others,” he said.