We can’t wait another 25 years for results, Mr Treasurer

It’s been hard not to be cynical about Anthony Albanese’s three-day love-in on the state of the economy.

Any time a government says it’s bringing together people to build consensus about a particularly consensus-free issue, images of a ponytailed acoustic guitar player singing Kumbaya immediately come to mind.

Labor’s last big show of consensus-building, the jobs and skills summit of 2022, may have been missing the ponytails, but unions walked away happy with the outcomes of a meeting that was supposed to have people working “constructively on the challenges and opportunities” facing the country.

One of that summit’s stated aims was to come up with ways to boost productivity. The fact that three years on, the country is still searching for those productivity-enhancing ideas points to the failure of 2022.

Amplifying the cynicism was the way the government seemed to discover productivity the day after the May election. This was a conversion that would challenge even Saul’s to Christianity on the road to Damascus.

Then came the decision by Albanese and Chalmers not to rule anything in or out. By doing so, the idea was to encourage every manner of idea to be solemnly debated – except, of course, if it came to something as contentious as a change in the GST or a tax on the family home.

But it was in his opening comments to the final day of the roundtable where Chalmers made clear what the government is truly seeking out of these three days of talks.

“We genuinely believe that the only way to deal with this productivity challenge in our economy is to do that together, involving you where we can,” he said.

The failures of policy reform since the advent of the GST have been because they have been so terribly contested.

Ken Henry, a roundtable attendee, knows all too well what happens to ideas if the political ground has not been tilled. Be it his mining tax or a price on carbon, the lack of broad support killed those ideas.

Those who demanded instant reform and had written off the roundtable even before participants sat down, displayed both hubris and a lack of historical understanding of the difficulty of substantial change.

In terms of hubris, some boffin saying “it’s my way or the highway” ignores the febrile political situation facing every government on the planet.

You only have to look at the White House to see that experts are being ignored because of their (never-acknowledged) past mistakes and their distaste for dealing with those directly affected by their great ideas.

Often ignored is the time required to put substantial change in place. The idea for a GST most prominently appeared in the Asprey review of 1975.

Paul Keating failed to win support for a consumption tax a decade later. John Howard finally put the tax in place in 2000.

So that’s a 25-year tax journey, based on a report that found Australia’s tax base was too narrow and relied too heavily on personal and company tax.

Grattan Institute chief executive Aruna Sathanapally noted in her presentation to the roundtable that if anything is going to be done, then compromise will be needed.

“It is too easy to torpedo change. The temptation for the media and vested interests is to amplify any conflict and flood the zone with bad analysis and hysteria,” she said.

Outside the cabinet room, the government this week made two important budget repair decisions.

Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek’s decision to lift the deeming rate – the assumed returns on cash investments held by retirees, which affects their pension payments – was much needed. Don’t underestimate the potential political blowback from reducing the pension for people who have benefited the most from higher interest rates over the past two years.

Then there was the plan from Mark Butler to overhaul the NDIS – vital if the budget is to remain under some control.

After almost two years of trying to seek an agreed position with the states, the federal government is finally biting the bullet to reform the scheme.

In another example of the importance of consensus, the Coalition – which did not get the same courtesy from Labor when it was trying to reduce the cost blowouts of the NDIS – has signalled it will support the government’s plan.

But consensus, albeit in a very important area, does not negate all necessary cynicism.

Ultimately, if Albanese and Chalmers fail to reduce red tape, build homes more quickly, get approvals for mines or protections of the environment done in a reasonable time, or even find ways to end the intergenerational bastardry imposed by the tax system on young Australians, then the roundtable will have been just another talkfest.

The nation doesn’t have 25 years to wait this time.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.