John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

What figures and comments on productivity in recent days demonstrate is that the Leader of the Opposition has had a John Kerin moment on the issue of productivity. The best way I can deal with the opposition and the issue of productivity is to quote him in that now daily more famous AM interview when he said:

… look at the budget papers, the productivity growth numbers reflected in that are dismal indeed for the overall trajectory of the Australian economy.

That was the unadvised, the ill-informed, the misunderstanding Leader of the Opposition on productivity, but his leaked adviser’s paper had this to say:

Even so, we should expect that, as the rate of GDP growth picks up, quarterly productivity statistics will be strong in the next year or so.

It goes on to say:

Given growth in employment and hours, this implies accelerating productivity growth in the non-farm sector. If export volumes and output growth continue to improve, it is likely that we will see a noticeable pick-up in productivity over the years to come abstracting from the impacts of the drought.

On this occasion, the Leader of the Opposition cannot blame his staff. I know he blames his staff for other things but on this occasion his staff at least were pointing out the facts, although it has to be said, from the briefing paper that has come into the hands of the media, that having isolated the true facts his staff did advise him to keep on deceiving the Australian public on the subject.

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