By Michael Hogan, TQKP Executive Convenor.
As the Government commences it’s second term, the Prime Minister and Treasurer have opened the door for a public policy reset on productivity. The Treasurer said in his National Press Club address on 18 June 2025: “…lifting productivity is about empowering workers and making the most of our human capital”. He added that: “We’ve encouraged a broader approach to productivity that goes beyond the old, tired and formulaic fights.”
ARACY, the auspice for the Thriving Queensland Kids Partnership, is making the case for a new paradigm of what productivity means – what it looks like, how we measure and value it. ARACY is urging the Treasurer’s Economic Reform Roundtable to take this opportunity not to reform productivity, but to redefine it.
We need a new paradigm of productivity, fit for a modern care and knowledge economy, that drives a fairer future instead of mortgaging the next generation. We need what Centre for Policy Development calls productivity with purpose – productivity as a tool to build an equitable, inclusive, and sustainable society.
ARACY’s key points are a call for:
– Intergenerational fairness
– More than business or the private sector
– Smarter investment
– Cross-sector prioritisation
Our contention is that it’s time to take a broader and deeper view, and set a much more ambitious agenda on the formation of the skills and capabilities – cognitive and non-cognitive – and the human agency and human connectivity – that are the essence of ‘human capital’.
Find out more about this important call by:
Downloading the full paper ‘Toward productivity for purpose: System approaches to building human capital, from the beginning‘ by Thriving Queensland Kids Partnership Executive Convenor, Michael Hogan.
Reading ARACY’s post ‘Don’t just reform productivity – redefine it‘
