Australia needs a new culture of risk in business
To lift productivity and growth, Australia must embrace risk, innovation and accountability, from startups to the boardrooms of public companies.
Australia’s challenge today is that, despite all the natural advantages we enjoy, our national economic performance is nowhere near as strong as it should be — as acknowledged by the convening of the forthcoming productivity summit.
We’ve had seven successive quarters of falling GDP per capita, and living standards have declined. Over the past 30 years, Australia has slipped from 57th to 102nd in Harvard University’s Atlas of Economic Complexity.
What’s alarming is that until very recently, no one was talking about this or even seemed particularly bothered by it. We’ve been through three national election campaigns in the past six years, with barely a mention of our lack of economic growth — just conversations about how to divide up the pie.
If this were our position in sport, there’d be a national crisis.
Read certain media and you’d believe the problems all lie with governments and trade unions. While there are plenty of obstacles to better productivity and economic growth on those fronts, it’s far from the whole story.
