The 2023 Intergenerational Report forecasts Australia’s path to prosperity over the next 40 years which includes the move to clean energy and the shift from IT to artificial intelligence.
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00:00 Australians living longer and healthier lives in a country powered by renewables
00:05 and transformed by technology with care and compassion at its core adding value
00:12 and maximizing opportunities in a world of churn and change. An Australia of
00:18 generational responsibilities and endless possibilities. A future that we
00:24 can be optimistic about but not complacent about. That's what the
00:28 intergenerational report lays out for us. Now it's 40 year horizon seems like a
00:34 long time but it's a flicker compared to the tens of thousands of years of
00:40 history that the Ngunnawal and the Ngambri people have shaped on this
00:44 country. We acknowledge them today, their elders, traditions, customs and culture
00:50 and we acknowledge and embrace the generational opportunity that the voice
00:55 presents us. To recognize and listen and get better outcomes for the first of us
01:01 in a way that could lift up and unite all of us. Now the Ngunnawal people they
01:08 speak of something called Murrigati. Murrigati means pathways for searching
01:14 in their language and the IGR that we released today is a form of Murrigati
01:19 because it's about searching for the right path together. I want to thank
01:25 Morris and his team and the board for the invitation back to the Press Club to
01:30 talk about this IGR and to Laura for her introduction a moment ago. I want to
01:35 thank the sponsors, the colleagues who have joined us as well especially from
01:40 the core economic team. Katie and Stephen and Andrew here who are here and
01:46 I'm sure Andy and Stephen won't mind me singling out for a special mention the
01:51 Finance Minister Katie Gallagher and not just because this is her backyard but
01:56 because I reckon if you look back in the almost 50 years that Katie's job has
02:01 existed there wouldn't have been in that whole time a closer, more productive, more
02:09 valued working relationship between a Treasurer and a Finance Minister than
02:15 the one that Katie and I have as we work through some of the issues that I want
02:19 to talk about today. So could you please put your hands together for the Finance Minister.
02:24 I see Alicia Payne and Dave Smith and there may be other colleagues here as
02:32 well. I acknowledge all of them and I acknowledge all of you either here in
02:36 the room or tuning in on the coverage. Thank you very much. It's been three and
02:42 a bit months since the last time I spoke at the Press Club in May, the day after
02:46 the Budget. Back then actually up in the Great Hall I tried to give you a sense
02:51 of how Anthony's Government is serving urgent priorities like addressing the
02:55 cost of living and our generational responsibilities at the same time.
03:00 Not just seeking to end a wasted decade but beginning a defining one and laying
03:06 the foundations for some broader long-term success in our society and in
03:12 our economy. And today is really about informing and building on that work.
03:17 Informing and reforming with the release of an intergenerational report that sets
03:22 out our imperatives and opportunities for the next 40 years. Now a lot of
03:28 effort has gone into this report and so I wanted to thank my ministerial
03:31 colleagues who provided input but also the Treasury and Finance and the other
03:36 officials under the wonderful leadership of people like Stephen Kennedy and Jenny
03:41 Wilkinson who are also with us today. Officials who worked around the clock to
03:47 put this important document together. Now the analysis that some of you have been
03:52 poring over this morning is the kind which supports Australian public
03:56 policymaking at its best. Rigorous, impartial, steeped in evidence, methodical
04:03 and urging us to think creatively about the future. The early IGRs had such an
04:10 important and meaningful impact and here I want to pay tribute to Peter Costello
04:15 for getting the ball rolling but also for showing us in the first two IGRs the
04:20 consequences of an aging population on the budget. And I want to acknowledge
04:25 Wayne Swan who then brought to his IGR a welcome focus on climate change. Now a
04:32 common perception is that the fourth and fifth IGRs lost their way a little bit.
04:37 Instead of setting out a shared sense of the things that will shape our future
04:42 Joe Hockey's was more focused on shaping the politics of the day and Josh
04:47 Frydenberg's in 2021 was more or less buried under heroic productivity
04:53 assumptions and a lack of interest or action. It was barely referenced after
04:58 the day that it was released and I thought that was a shame then and I said
05:02 so and I think it's a shame now because it meant that instead of broadening our
05:07 horizons these IGRs narrowed them and now in hindsight they look even more
05:13 like two punctuation points of missed opportunity in a wasted decade full of
05:19 them. That's why we've approached this report with extra care and diligence and
05:24 enthusiasm. We've put it out early in our term as part of a broader commitment to
05:29 release it more frequently. We've done our best to make it deeper with more
05:35 focus on the changes underway in our industrial base, our economy and our
05:39 society and not just our budget. And we've made it a significant part of our
05:44 efforts to revitalise policy thinking and renovate our institutions and focus
05:48 properly on our big national challenges and chances. Now this IGR sets out the
05:55 choices that will determine whether we succeed or fail in the years ahead and
06:00 it sends I think a pretty clear and compelling message. We can own the future
06:07 but only if we take the big shifts seriously because if the 1980s meant the
06:14 end of certainty the 2020s must mark the end of complacency. We know this IGR
06:22 comes at a difficult moment for Australians right around the country.
06:25 That today our immediate obligation is to do what we can to ease cost of living
06:31 pressures without adding to inflation. But the critics out there who say that we
06:36 need to wait before engaging with our long-term prospects just don't seem to
06:41 get it. There will never be a quiet time to think about the future. There will
06:46 always be competing pressures and urgent calls on our attention and the best
06:51 leaders can focus on more than one thing, more than one horizon, more than one set
06:56 of opportunities. That's what good governments do and we've shown that by
07:01 progressing a voice while investing in our future, repairing the budget while
07:05 rolling out billions of dollars of assistance to help with cost of living
07:09 pressures and taking the edge off power bills now while steering us towards a
07:14 future of cleaner and cheaper energy. Now the IGR that we've released today
07:20 gives us a sense of the context in which that future will play out. As some in
07:26 this room have already spent hours engaging with it, others are perhaps
07:30 coming to it for the first time. And what you have seen or what you will see in
07:35 the pages of the report is a country where people will live longer and
07:40 healthier lives, where real incomes are 50% higher, with the economy more than
07:46 double today's size. But as our population ages this will create some
07:51 challenges as well. Challenges to our budget and challenges to growth. And as
07:56 we age there will be a smaller share of working-age people putting pressure on
08:01 our tax base at the same time as we face growing spending pressures from the NDIS,
08:06 aged care, health, defence and debt interest costs, which could keep us in
08:12 deficit and put debt back on the rise. Now our early efforts to repair the
08:17 budget mean that the outlook is better though when compared to 2021, putting us
08:23 in a stronger position to sustain essential services. Our economy will
08:28 expand substantially as I've just outlined, but our productivity challenge
08:32 which we've reflected in the adoption of a more realistic productivity
08:36 assumption means that overall real GDP projections are down from the report
08:41 released a couple of years ago. Now that's a snapshot view of what things
08:46 could look like in 40 years, but there have been enough of these reports that
08:51 it's now understood that the projections made here aren't predetermined. There's a
08:56 level of confidence but not certainty about how the coming decades play out
09:01 for us. But the most important thing about this IGR isn't the overall
09:07 predictions about where we might land, as informative and illustrative and
09:12 interesting as they are, it's the choices that it sets out for us. Now this
09:18 matters most when it comes to handling the biggest shifts that will determine
09:22 the shape of our future. And here we need to recognise the difference between
09:27 managing and maximising. Managing is working through change, smoothing the
09:33 sharp edges and softening the blow. Maximising is making the most of change,
09:39 owning it and driving it and shaping it in the best interests of our people. And
09:45 so we approach this as maximisers and not just as managers. We're managing the
09:51 economy in a responsible, methodical way and making good progress, but maximising
09:56 the opportunities on the horizon at the same time. Now each of us in the
10:02 Albanese government probably recognises, describes and defines this in different
10:07 ways, but for me I think it really comes down to this. At a time of change one
10:13 thing is clear and pressing and absolutely foundational. To make
10:18 Australia the biggest beneficiary of the shifts underway in our economy in ways
10:24 that create more opportunities for more people in more parts of our country. That
10:29 is the objective and that is the ambition and this is how we own the
10:34 future.
10:36 [BLANK_AUDIO]