Australia doesn’t have a tax problem. It has a productivity problem. And the longer we conflate the two, the longer we’ll stay stuck in a low-growth, low-ambition loop.

The truth is simple: raising or lowering taxes might shape how we fund public services, but it does not fundamentally make the country more productive. Productivity isn’t a fiscal lever. It’s a capability. And right now, that capability is underpowered.

The government will hold a productivity roundtable in early August and are seeking submissions for discussion. We think we have a few good ones, and it starts by acknowledging that we keep debating the wrong problem.

Here’s the crux of our own submission:

1. Put Technology to Work, for Everyone

While large enterprises automate and optimise, many Australian SMEs are still running on spreadsheets and legacy tools. This is, to put it bluntly, a competitive handicap.

We need a national approach that does more than cheerlead innovation. It must directly support deployment. That means:

• Grants and tax incentives not for “innovation theatre,” but for real, measurable productivity improvements. Think ERP systems, IoT for logistics, AI for supply chain planning.
• Shared infrastructure hubs in regional areas so that smaller players can access enterprise-grade tools without prohibitive costs.
• A Digital Leaders Fund to help Australian tech providers scale solutions tailored to the actual needs of local businesses, not imported one-size-fits-all platforms.

These might not be shiny showcases, but they will quietly and relentlessly close the capability gap. Technology doesn’t need to be dazzling. It just needs to work.

2. Rethink Skills as a Productivity Lever

The skills conversation in Australia too often drifts toward immigration or university caps. But the deeper issue is that we’re not building a workforce that aligns with what the economy actually needs.

The next generation of jobs will be digital, hybrid, and service-heavy. Yet our training pipelines, all the way from TAFE to micro-credentials, remain fragmented and sluggish. We need to:

• Reform TAFE and VET systems around growth sectors like cyber, data, renewables, and aged care.
• Roll out a national micro-credentials framework with HECS-style funding, making it viable for people to retrain without quitting their jobs or going broke.
• Embed digital fluency, including data and cyber literacy, into every post-secondary qualification.
• Support older Australians to reskill with targeted funds and tax incentives. Australia’s most underused productivity asset is workers over 35.

A skills strategy is not a nice-to-have. It’s economic policy by other means.

3. Make Good Management the Standard, Not the Exception

Here’s something we don’t talk about enough: Australian management is underperforming.

Research consistently shows that poor management practices are a major drag on productivity. Better-managed firms are more likely to adopt technology, upskill workers, and achieve higher growth. Yet we keep treating leadership as a soft skill rather than a strategic capability.

It’s time to get serious:

• A national uplift program for SME leaders, focused on lean operations, digital confidence, and people management.
• Embedding productivity metrics into daily decision-making through simple, accessible dashboards and tools.
• Funding for industry-based leadership cohorts, mentoring groups, and practical playbooks.

We don’t need more TED Talks about leadership. We need frameworks that help people run better businesses tomorrow.

4. Clear the Bureaucratic Brush

Productivity is not just about what businesses do. Rather, it’s about what governments stop doing.

Cumbersome regulation, multi-jurisdictional red tape, and outdated planning systems add invisible drag across every sector. For small and mid-sized businesses, this can feel like running a race with weights around your ankles.

The fix isn’t radical, it’s just overdue:

• Digitise planning approvals with national APIs and workflow transparency.
• Build single-entry compliance portals that collapse reporting into one interface.
• Create fast-track “Productivity Zones” where red tape is reduced and investment speed is the KPI.

Every week a business waits for a license is a week of foregone output, and that means lost GDP.

5. Rebuild the Institutions of Ambition

Australia doesn’t lack ideas. It lacks mechanisms to act on them at scale. From regional tech hubs to public-private upskilling alliances, we need institutions that turn good policy into real capability uplift.

This includes:

• Expanding the remit of the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman to include digital and management diagnostics.
• Coordinated workforce hubs that align local training with local demand, particularly in regional economies.
• Greater support for vendor-neutral guidance and implementation support—not just startup showcases and glossy policy documents.

The aim here should be to move productivity beyond an academic idea and into an applied discipline.

Most people understand that Australia’s productivity puzzle won’t be solved by tweaks to tax brackets. However, that often seems like the low-hanging fruit, so it tends to dominate the conversation.

Instead, the problems Australian productivity face will be solved when we refocus the national conversation on how work is done, how people are supported to do it better, and how we build systems that reward performance over process.

We know what to do. Now we just need the political and institutional will to do it.