Treasurer invites opposition Ted O’Brien to economic reform talks in ‘show of good faith’

Shadow treasurer Ted O’Brien will join Jim Chalmers’ economic reform roundtable in August after a show of faith from the Government that the Coalition is genuine about wanting to be constructive.

The Treasurer said he extended the invitation to his new Opposition counterpart because he believed it would be a good thing for the country to have Mr O’Brien engaged.

“I think it would give us a better chance of making the kind of progress that we desperately need to see on reform and in our economy more broadly,” Dr Chalmers said.

The three-day roundtable is expected to involve about 25 people and is aimed at generating ideas and building consensus for economic reforms that boost Australia’s productivity and resilience and help make the budget more sustainable.

That includes looking at broad tax reform.

Dr Chalmers said he had already had good discussions with businesses and unions on these three fronts.

“We want people to come with an eye to the national interest. We want people to understand and engage and propose trade-offs, and we want people to come with specific ideas, not just problem identification,” he said.

“I’ve been really heartened and encouraged by the amount of interest that people have shown already in the Economic Reform Roundtable, and I think that augers well for the next steps in the already very substantial program of economic progress and reform that we have undertaken.”

Mr O’Brien said he intended to be constructive where he could but critical where he must.

“The Coalition will hold the government to account every step of the way and won’t be there to rubber stamp a talkfest,” he said.

“It’s worth the Treasurer knowing from the outset that I believe rhetoric is no substitute for reform. I want to see honesty in how the government defines the economic problems our nation faces, and I will be looking to tangible outcomes as real measures of success.”

Dr Chalmers and his assistant minister for productivity Andrew Leigh want to make deregulation a priority in this term, with the Treasurer saying too much well-meaning red tape has led to progressives getting in the way of the things they wanted to achieve.

The Opposition has highlighted 5034 new regulations added in the previous term of Parliament.

Shadow productivity minister Andrew Bragg blasted them as “an ugly catalogue of anti-business garbage.”

But Dr Leigh hit back with data showing the Morrison government added 5383 regulations to Australia’s rule books between 2019 and 2022.