CPA Australia welcomes PM’s productivity roundtable

• Open dialogue is needed to spur productivity and growth
• Essential that tax reform and deregulation are on the table
• Government must continue to consult business

Australia’s largest accounting association, CPA Australia, has welcomed today’s announcement by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that a productivity roundtable will be convened in August.

CPA Australia Business Investment Lead Gavan Ord said the roundtable was a positive step towards engaging the business community and other key stakeholders in finding solutions to Australia’s productivity decline.

“The roundtable can be successful if it genuinely and openly seeks to explore all options for boosting productivity and improving our economy,” he said.

“It therefore must include examining regulatory burden, considering improvements to our tax settings, and exploring how we can boost support for our struggling SME sector.

“Business will come to the summit armed with goodwill and with the hope the Albanese Government will be ambitious with its productivity agenda.”

Mr Ord said that fixing Australia's productivity challenges required goodwill and bipartisanship across all sectors and ultimately across politics. 

“Addressing it will require hard work – collective, long-term effort across all sectors, including government, business, unions, education and civil society,” he said.

“The solutions sit at all levels of government. A holistic approach must be taken to boost productivity, strengthen and diversify the economy, create jobs and deliver a culture-shift where entrepreneurism is encouraged and facilitated.”

The announcement comes as CPA Australia advises the Productivity Commission that removing unnecessary and burdensome regulation will be crucial to boosting economic growth.

The Productivity Commission has identified 15 priority reform areas for exploration under five productivity inquires commissioned by the Albanese Government.

As part of its submissions, CPA Australia says the government must also undertake a wholesale review of the corporate tax system to identify where investments are being held back. The submission can be downloaded here.

Economic growth figures released last week show Gross Domestic Product (GDP) slowed to 0.2 per cent in the first three months of 2025, down from the 0.6 per cent rise reported in the December quarter.

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