As of this week, the government is accepting ideas. Even bad ones.
“We want to hear from builders on how to overcome barriers on the job site, teachers on how government can better support their students, and aged and disability care workers on ideas for the care system,” says the Productivity Commission’s new boss Danielle Wood.
Australia’s recent labour productivity performance is spectacular, in the bad way — productivity is plunging. Yes, we are making more GDP — more McDonald’s meals, more kilometres of electricity transmission wire, more Uber rides, more boatloads of liquefied natural gas — but by using more and more labour inputs per dollar of output. As the next chart shows, we showed a bit of strength for a while, but now we are back to 2015 levels of productivity.
So the government is seeking help — from literally anyone. You could argue that this is a sign of desperation, or that this is precisely how democracy should operate. I’m more in the second camp. The stultifying forces of orthodoxy prevent us from looking at new ideas and we need to throw open the doors to the ivory tower more often.
The Productvity Commission seems to think so too, and it is opening up its website to every Australian and their dog to make a suggestion. You can put your idea here and I urge you to do so.
“We will be choosing a small number of ideas to be considered for further investigation. Your ideas can help to shape the future of Australia,” it says.
But how helpful is the average Australian? Let’s look at some of the ideas that have floated in on the breeze.
Warmlets and big ideas
My favourite is this: “Having many more publicly available toilets, and of the high quality Japanese automated washlet/warmlet style, accompanied by an extensive public education programme, would improve quality of life appreciably.”
I put it to you that this is the first time “warmlet” — a portmanteau of warm and toilet — has been read in the offices of government, and I love it. And the broader idea is vitally important: certain types of public assets are underprovided given our changing demographics.
There’s a lot of demand that the government not just ask for ideas but also fund their development.
“A tripling of R&D investment, simplification and uniformity of funding applications would reduce time spent writing unsuccessful funding applications,” explains one advocate.
People want:
- HECS debts to be frozen for women who give birth
- Cruise ships as housing
- A special way of burning plastic instead of throwing it away
There are some terrible ideas too, like this angry business owner who wants to get rid of paid leave:
We simply take too many holidays in this country and have too many employment benefits paid for by business making it an expensive place to do business, making whole months (Dec/Jan, April) a write off and making us less productive when compared to our peers who do have these expensive policies, payments and benefits.
I’d mention this mad idea to fill Lake Eyre as well, but there’s a conflict of interest since I was the one who submitted it.
Will these ideas fix productivity?
Productivity is complicated, but it’s a good kind of complexity. The kind that gets your brain working.
For example, when unemployment is low, we add many new people to the labour market — kids, backpackers, long-term unemployed people. These are not master craftsmen, skilled financial wizards, brilliant teachers or efficient managers, so when they join the labour market, it becomes less efficient.
However, if we train these people and they gain experience — and we buy enough tools and computer systems to help them do their jobs — then in time we can make those marginal workers into decent workers.
This takes time, effort and capital. The best kind of productivity gain comes from “new recipes”: fresh ideas for how to put together money and people (capital and labour) to make useful things. Often that’s driven by technology, but sometimes technology isn’t whizz-bang, it’s just an idea nobody had before. In many countries, water pipes would make the economy more productive: instead of going to fetch water, the water comes to you!
There must still be equivalent ideas out there for rich countries, ideas that can make a big difference. And the bigger the scale of the idea, the more it can help us produce more while using less effort. This is ultimately how we get higher living standards: a country that can feed, house and care for its citizens to a high level, working six months a year, had more time and resource left over for higher pursuits.
“Reinvigorating productivity is a national priority. Even small changes that make the economy more dynamic and efficient can deliver big economic dividends and add up to major improvements in real wages and living standards over time,” says Productivity Commission deputy chair Alex Robson.
It’s why they’ve given the microphone to us. Let’s make sure we give them our best ideas.
