CEDAs Melinda Cilento asks Productivity Commissions Michael Brennan What makes you Optimistic? [m4nvsWB7dBv]
""There's now an opportunity... to become more optimistic about our future and perhaps a bit braver about our future and the potential." Melinda Cilento "I am an optimist by nature" Michael Brennan Victor Perton participated in CEDA's "PRODUCTIVITY PRIORITIES POST-PANDEMIC" online event and submitted a question on optimism and the Australian Productivity Commission. CEDA's Melinda Cilento was the moderator. Michael Brennan was the guest of honour Melinda Cilento: "I've got a question from Victor Perton, who many of you will know is always keen to advance a more optimistic agenda. His question to you, Michael, my interpretation of it is: we've lived 18 months in a fair degree of fear, in a fearful environment really. There's now an opportunity I think, and Victor is pointing it out, to become more optimistic about our future and perhaps a bit braver about our future and the potential. How do you see the role of the Productivity Commission in enhancing or contributing to a more glass half full optimistic agenda for Australia?" Michael Brennan: Yes, I am quite sympathetic to that view. And in a way, in the remarks I made earlier, I tried to reflect that optimistic view. Because I think you can see the productivity debate as being one of two things. One is that the pessimistic view that things aren't as they should be and we need to exhort government to get their act together. "I am an optimist by nature. And I think that the most fundamental message for today is for us to maintain that optimism about what has served Australia well. "So I maintain that, yes, we've had a productivity challenge, there's been a productivity slowdown. But when you look at Australia's performance, relative to others, you don't want to sound naively optimistic, but where in the world would we rather be? We've had a strong response on the health side, a strong response on the economic side. Not without blemish, of course. But for the most part, the framework and the preparedness with which we went in, or the policy settings with which we went in have served us well. "And I think it's important for us to maintain that sense of optimism and self-confidence. I think, particularly on the couple of issues that I raised around the sovereign capability and around the fiscal settings, there's just a bit of a tendency in the debate ... sometimes opportunistically ... but to identify that the pandemic came along as though the pandemic exposed countless weaknesses in the Australian system or Australian policy settings, and these now need to be rectified. Well, I mean, for the most part, we proved pretty resilient. And I think we should reflect on that in shaping policy moving forward."