With monetary and fiscal policy instruments overextended, reforms to enhance our economy’s supply-side performance have become more necessary than ever if economic stagnation and declining living standards are to be averted.
On leaving the Productivity Commission in 2012, Gary assembled a ‘to do list’ of pro-productivity reforms drawn from Commission reviews. Have many been ticked off by now? Alas no … indeed, new items have been added. Worse, there is a growing sense of resignation that such reforms are too hard today.
Gary Banks has just stepped down as Dean and CEO of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government, a role he took up in 2013 on leaving the Productivity Commission. He has recently been appointed chair of the Australian Statistics Advisory Council and Senior Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.