The regulatory authorities fail to understand productions inability here to adapt on product or price as the labor force is structured in such a manner as to rule out multi tasking or its ability to think constructively outside the square. So those who need to produce, go to where those who do understand the benefits of competition and are keen to understand. Not just increasing costs based on awards but delivering on outcomes.

You are all leaving out the cost of the boat arrivals, the real cost of which is being hidden.
1) A lot of the refugees in the community are looked after by the charities the cost of which is being paid for by the tax payer.
2) The enormous cost of having our navy and air force used as a taxi service.
Just those 2 things alone would run into the Billions.
The sooner the navy lets Indonesia look after their own maritime rescue zone the better.
Billion for new destroyers why when we can't even find the boats till they ring 000 and say where they are.

You are all leaving out the biggest issue of all – the rapidly and constantly increasing demand for everything!

Geoff Carmody writes:

< Sustainable increases in Australian living standards require sustainable increases in productivity >

This is an extremely ‘loose’ use of the word ‘sustainable’

So, does our standard of living depend on a constant increase in productivity?

NO!

Hell no!

That’s the LAST thing we need, all else being equal.

Crikey, we have got an enormously rapidly increasing rate of productivity now, and have had all along.

The most important thing is to stabilise the demand, so that increased productivity can actually increase the per-capita benefits, instead of simply providing the same level of benefits for ever-more people.

Then a little bit further down the track we can stop increasing productivity and hold it at a constant level, while maintaining a much better quality of life than we now have.

How can the author and all respondents so far miss this enormously important point??

The elephant in the living room must be so enormous and so close that you just can’t see it at all!!

It's about supply and demand, not just about supply!!

We've got to work just as much on the demand side of the equation as we do on the supply side.

Disposable income is probably a good measure of gain in the economy.
Government, bankers, financiers and commentators however shove money
in the form of pixel money into the economy in the forlorn hope of
increasing growth.
They generally, like the majority of their ilk, still believe that
growth is dependant on money supply.
With that belief, printing money is the answer.

However some economists are starting to realise that growth is
dependant on having additional energy over what was available last year.
Oil energy is a major factor needed for growth, but oil production has
been static since 2005. Therefore, growth MUST BE static also.