I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises that lifting productivity requires governments to remove unnecessary costs and barriers that make it harder for businesses to invest, hire and expand;

(2) welcomes the Govemment's productivity reforms, including measures to:

(a) make standards referenced in Australian legislation free to access;

(b) reduce duplicated regulatory reporting and paperwork;

(c) streamline foreign investment and major project approvals;

(d) make it easier for skilled workers to use their qualifications across state and territory borders; and

(e) support faster housing approvals and modern construction methods;

(3) notes that:

(a) national competition policy reforms are estimated to add around $13 billion to the Australian economy each year once implemented, equivalent to an average benefit of around $1,200 per household; and

(b) making construction standards free will save some small trade businesses up to $1,600 each year in access fees; and

(4) supports continued cooperation between the Commonwealth, states and territories to build a more seamless, competitive and productive national economy.

Imagine driving your car on the open road. I like doing it up in the far north, although the red dust is hard to get out of a black car. You know, instinctively, that if you don't follow the speed limit, you'll get a fine and possibly, depending on how fast you're going, lose your licence or, worse, end up in jail. The only way to discover that speed limit is to pay a fee. That doesn't make a lot of sense in the real world. You want to do the right thing. You're trying to do the right thing. You want to follow the rules to keep yourself and your community safe, but you have to pay to find out what the rules are.

You see, when it comes to the mandatory Australian Standards, this is the strange position that many of our tradies and manufacturers find themselves in. In order to produce safely and in order to obey the rules, they have to pay a fee, paying for access to the rules. These standards are the instruction manuals that keep everything humming along. They tell us how a product should be made, how the system should perform and how the work should be carried out. They keep our homes, workplaces and communities safe.

These standards are all around us: on our building sites, in our electrical work, plumbing, transport and manufacturing and in the handling of hazardous materials. The seatbelt that you wore on your way to work this morning? AS/NZS2596. The playground that the kids play on on the weekend? Australian Standard 4685. The exit signs that you see all around the place? Australian Standard/New Zealand Standard 2293.

These are the rules that you don't think about. They're the rules that you don't really even know about until something goes wrong. The Australian government estimates that under the current arrangements, it's costing small business owners around $1,600 a year just to access the rules that they have to work under. Just so they can do their jobs. For a tradie in Weipa, that's a new tool that might get the job done a bit faster. For a small-business owner in Cooktown, that could help pay the electricity bill.

Commonsense would say that access to these rules should be free. The good news is, that's what's happening. The government is removing the paywall to access these standards. This move supports the government's broader reforms to the National Competition Policy, a joint reform program between the Commonwealth and the states and territories with the aim of boosting productivity and therefore lifting wages and living standards.

Now I'm going to get into story time. People love story time. I want to tell you about a bloke I know named Jack. Jack has been a builder for about 15 years. He's a good tradesman, steady with his hands and decent on the half-back flank. He's the sort of fella who says he's going to stand up and does. Jack moved up to Cairns from Coffs, and why wouldn't you? It's the best place on Earth. He and his wife were chasing a bit of warmer weather. It's a magnificent part of the world. Jack wasn't worried about work. Tradies are in high demand in the Far North. We are open for business. There are houses to be built, a new hospital to be built and a new university. It's going great. But, much to Jack's surprise, he sat on the couch for two months, not because there was no work—there's plenty of work—but because his licence stopped at the border. I'm not the handiest person you've ever met in your life, but I'm pretty sure that timber south of Coolangatta is the same as the timber north of Coolangatta. The man knows how to wield a hammer. So he paid his fees, filled out the forms and patiently waited for his 15 years of experience to be properly recognised in the state of Queensland. While he waited, there were homes not being built and bills not being paid.

The Productivity Commission has reported that the number of homes completed per work hour is 53 per cent lower today than it was in the 1990s, and this is in a country where we need more homes. Making sure men and women like Jack can take their skills, knowledge and experience right around the country, wherever the work is, is what this government is committed to. These aren't flashy reforms. They're not going to make headlines. But they are reforms that will ensure this country keeps making things, making them quickly and making them safely. The changes to the National Competition Policy alone are expected to add around $13 billion to the economy every year. That's around $1,200 for every single household in the country—not from a mine and not from a boom but from clearing the regulatory pipes. These are good reforms. Let's back them in.

Is the motion seconded?

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Australians' living standards have gone backwards in the last five years. In the face of below-average productivity and high inflation, real wages have fallen to about 2011 levels. If we can't boost our productivity, then social objectives like health and disability care and climate action will be compromised. The care economy—health, aged care and disability—employs 2.4 million people. That's one in six Australian workers. In 2023-24, health spending was $270 billion, close to 10 per cent of the GDP. If we're serious about productivity, we can't leave health care out of the conversation.

Productivity in health care doesn't mean nurses have to work harder or that we have to relentlessly cut services. It's about how much healthcare value can be created with the resources available. It's about better outcomes for every dollar spent. Our clinicians want that as much as any Treasury official. A healthy population is a productive population. People with chronic disease are 60 per cent more likely to be out of the labour force. Eighty-two billion dollars of our health spending goes to chronic conditions. Many of them are preventable. Health spending is not a cost burden. It's an investment in our workforce, but it needs to be done wisely. I suggest four priorities.

The first is prevention. The Treasury has found that every dollar spent on preventive health care returns $14 in savings, but we spend less than two per cent of our health budget on public health and disease prevention. Take dental care—more than two million Australians deferred dental treatment, many because of cost, last year. The AIHW has estimated that as many as 89,000 hospitalisations for emergency treatment of dental conditions every year are preventable. Delivering preventive primary dental care, starting with children and seniors, would be a worthy productivity reform in this country.

The second is workforce. Our health workforce is supplied through domestic training and immigration across multiple jurisdictions, portfolios, regulators and employers, but no single body oversees it. We don't know who ends up where, doing what or where the gaps are. Ahpra can't even tell us whether the government's recently introduced expedited specialist pathway is actually putting specialist international medical graduates into rural areas of need. The Snowball review, accreditation systems review and National Medical Workforce Strategy have all called for a national planning body with the authority and expertise to match supply to demand by speciality and region.

Thirdly, every dollar invested in health and medical research returns almost four to our economy, yet our R&D spending has fallen to under 1.7 per cent of GDP. We're cutting jobs at the CSIRO and we're underspending from the MRFF. The government's planned changes to the R&D tax incentive will strip supporting activities out of the scheme. They propose that companies older than 10 years lose the ability to claim the cash refund. This could well drive Australian firms that are turning research into products in this country offshore. We have to retain eligibility for supporting activities directly linked to core R&D. We should replace that arbitrary 10-year cut-off with a test based on the stage of growth and commercialisation, and we should put savings into incentives that reward industry for doing more research here, not less.

The fourth is technology. Artificial intelligence is arriving faster than our capacity to regulate it. Our healthcare system is unprepared. We have no coordinated national approach. The productivity dividend from new diagnostic tools, AI scribes and administrative automation will be real, but so will the risks: loss of sovereign patient data, with foreign platforms potentially underpinning Australian health care; and, as we've seen with vertically integrated telehealth, business models which are built on prescribing volume, not on patient care. Underpinning all of this is measurement. We still have no agreed method for measuring the productivity of our care economy. The government has reviews of its medical research strategy, the R&D sector, health technology and a scope of practice in train, but it has been too slow to execute them. The prize, if we execute them properly, could be a healthier workforce, more efficient systems, a sovereign medical technology sector and a more productive Australia.

For a small electrical contractor in the Hunter, productivity isn't an economist's chart or spreadsheet. It's whether they spend Friday night finishing a job or filling out paperwork they've already completed somewhere else. It's whether a builder can get the standards needed to do the job without paying hundreds of dollars just to read rules they are legally required to follow. It's whether a qualified tradie moving across state borders will get straight on the tools or spend months proving skills they already have. That's what productivity means in the real world. It means removing the roadblocks that waste people's time, drive up costs and stop good businesses from investing, hiring and growing.

Australia faced a productivity challenge for a long time. There's no silver bullet and no single reform that fixes everything. It requires governments, businesses and workers pulling in the same direction and being prepared to change and challenge a system that no longer works. That's why the Albanese Labor government is delivering the broadest productivity reform agenda since the nineties. The 15 reforms progressed in this year's budget are expected to cut regulatory costs by $10.2 billion every year and lift GDP by around $13 billion annually once implemented. That's roughly $1,200 for every Australian household. These aren't numbers pulled from thin air; they come from making practical changes across the economy.

We're making mandatory Australian standards free to access, including standards covering construction, lecco work, plumbing, workplace safety and product safety. It has never made sense to tell a small business it must comply with standards and then charge it to find out what the standards actually say. Making those standards free could save some small trade businesses up to $1,600 every year. For tradies and contractors across Cessnock, Singleton, Kurri and Lake Macquarie, that's money better spent on tools, apprentices, vehicles and growing their business.

We're reducing duplicated regulatory reporting and unclear data requests. We're moving towards a 'tell us once' approach so Australians don't have to provide the same information to different parts of the government over and over and over again. We're making the $20,000 instant asset write-off permanent, giving small businesses the certainty to invest while saving around $376,000 hours in tax compliance.

We're also making it easier for people to use the qualifications they've earned. A tradie shouldn't be held back simply because they cross a line on a map. Faster and more consistent skill recognition means qualified workers can get in the job sooner and employers can fill shortages faster. That matters in the Hunter, where we need skilled workers to build homes, maintain industry, support new investment and train the next generation.

We're streamlining foreign investment and major project approvals while keeping the proper safeguards in place. We're investing more than $500 million in environmental regulatory reforms to speed up decisions and reduce duplication between the Commonwealth, the states and territories. A fast decision doesn't mean a weaker decision. Businesses need clear rules, proper scrutiny and straight answers within a reasonable timeframe. Communities deserve that certainty too.

Housing is another major part of the agenda. We're working with states and territories to fast-track approvals, release more land and create a simpler, national code, the National Construction Code. We're supporting modern construction methods and investing in the roads, water, power and sewerage needed for up to 65,000 homes over the next decade. In the Hunter, we know housing announcements mean nothing if enabling infrastructure isn't there and builders are tied up in unnecessary delays. Productivity reform must help turn approvals into homes people can actually live in.

Competition is part of this work too. We're stopping unfair non-compete clauses from handcuffing workers in their current jobs. More than three million Aussie workers are covered by these clauses, including childcare workers, construction workers and hairdressers. Australians shouldn't need a lawyer's permission to take a better-paying job. Making it easier to move between employers can lift wages, spread skills and help productivity and businesses grow.

We're also consulting on extending right-to-repair rules to the agricultural machinery sector. When equipment breaks down when they're planting or harvesting, a farmer can't wait weeks. They must have access to better repair information, less downtime, more choice for more local repairs and more local mechanics. Productivity isn't about asking Australians to work longer and harder for less.

I support this motion. It says, 'Lifting productivity means removing the costs and barriers that make it harder for businesses to invest, hire and expand.' And I agree; these are important steps. But, as the Productivity Commission said last week, no single policy can bring productivity growth back to its long-term average. Governments will have to make a lot of pro-productivity decisions, and this motion contains only a handful.

Last Wednesday's national accounts showed the economy grew 2.1 per cent over the year. That sounds reasonable, until you see hours worked grew 2.3 per cent. All of that growth came from working more hours, not from working smarter. Over 20 years, growth has slowed to about 0.8 per cent, and it will not fix itself. When productivity stops, wages stop. Real wages fell more than five per cent in the five years from 2021. For the people I represent, that means pay that doesn't keep up with the cost of living, young people who will not do better than their parents and less room to fund aged care, disability support and climate action, unless we raise taxes or cut something else.

The reforms outlined in this motion are good., but this is not a plan to turn around a two-decade slide. Let me suggest three levers we are barely using. The first lever is research and development. Productivity growth comes from new ideas, and R&D is how you get them. Universities Australia estimates that, over the last 30 years, every dollar spent on university research has grown the economy by $5. But Australia spends about 1.7 per cent of GDP on R&D, down from 2.2 per cent in 2009 and below the OECD average of 2.7. No, we don't need another review. Ambitious Australia, completed nearly a year ago, has 20 recommendations. It's the most thorough look at this system in decades. The Academy of Science has asked the government to get on with implementing it as a package, and so do I.

The second lever is immigration. Instead of arguing about how many people come, let's look at how we boost productivity through better, more effective migration settings. Activate Australia's Skills, an alliance of more than 100 businesses, unions and community groups, found 44 per cent of permanent migrants work below their skill level. More than 250,000 face blockages to working in their regulated professions. Let them work in their own fields, and their productive contribution rises by an average of $43,000 a year each. We need to fix the system for recognising overseas skills and qualifications while upholding standards and will soon see the productivity gains.

The third lever is artificial intelligence. Last week's accounts really tell a story here. Private investment was flat, but new building construction rose.

Order! It being 7.30 pm, the time allotted for this debate has expired.