Leaked Treasury advice lists possible outcomes of next week’s summit

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Albanese government's economic reform roundtable is yet to happen but a pre-written list of potential outcomes has been leaked to the ABC. The treasury document recommends a focus on speeding up housing approvals including freezing changes to the national construction code. The treasurer has downplayed the document's significance saying it should not come as a surprise briefings have been prepared.

Transcript

00:00It's less than a week until the Prime Minister sits around a table for national productivity

00:07talks.

00:08Today he's knocking back revelations the outcome's been brewed in advance.

00:13You'd expect Treasury to be giving advice about a forum that's about the economy.

00:20Unions and business groups have been invited to share their ideas to guide reform, but

00:25the ABC has seen a pre-written list of possible outcomes prepared for Cabinet by the Department

00:31of Treasury ahead of time.

00:34This whole exercise is being choreographed.

00:36We're not pre-empting any outcomes or directions out of next week, but we are with Treasury's

00:40help preparing for them, and I don't think that's a big surprise.

00:44Among the recommendations, a National Artificial Intelligence Plan to speed up environmental

00:49checks, clearing a backlog of 30,000 homes currently being assessed under dated environmental

00:55laws and pausing and streamlining changes to the National Construction Code in a bid to

01:02reach the government's target of 1.2 million homes in the next four years.

01:07By pausing the NCC for residential builders, it gives them certainty to ensure that they

01:13know what they need to build during that period.

01:16It does not increase costs.

01:18It's a policy pitched by the Coalition at the election and panned by Labor, which warned

01:24of shoddy homes, but the government is now considering it.

01:28I'm telling you, I've looked at this myself and we have made it incredibly difficult for

01:33builders to do what they do best.

01:34We haven't adopted or announced that as a policy.

01:37The government doesn't have to accept Treasury's advice, but the document does give an indication

01:42of what Jim Chalmers Department wants out of these talks.

01:45What it doesn't say is just as telling.

01:48No mention of big tax reform, the likes of which the Treasurer was open to just eight weeks

01:53ago.

01:54Government will make decisions, to be very clear.

01:57Governments make decisions.

01:59The Treasurer is insisting all ideas are welcome on the road to a more productive economy.

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