Cut Through

The beautiful, useless ideas of Jim Chalmers’ Economic Roundtable

Cut Through

Show Notes

Treasurer Jim Chalmers held his much-hyped Economic Reform Roundtable this week, with politicians and a selective list of experts, leaders and business executives discussing solutions for the challenges facing the Australian economy. Boring? Yeah. But given this three-day meeting will shape the next three federal budgets, it deserves your scrutiny.

Economist Jason Murphy joins readers’ editor Crystal Andrews to explain what ‘productivity’ means, why the roundtable was so fixated on this concept and to talk through some of the proposals on housing, tax reform and Centrelink.

But patience is the name of this game: Murphy thinks any “success stories” from this roundtable won’t be seen for 10 years or more.

Read more: Jim Chalmers wants his economic roundtable to rise above party politics. Good luck! How Jim Chalmers’ ‘boardroom blitz’ roundtable kicked off Reader reply: Is it time for a Universal Basic Income? Some taxes are inefficient at any level. Even modest reforms will help How the productivity roundtable became a vast gaslighting exercise — and sums up the fatal rot in Australian politics

Sign up to Crikey’s free newsletter: https://bit.ly/crikey-newsletter

Crikey’s independent journalism is supported by readers — 98% of our revenue comes from our subscribers. We’re not accountable to billionaires; we’re accountable to you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More from Cut Through

Oct 21, 2026

With the fragmentation and loss of belief in the Liberal Party, the future of liberalism itself these days doesn’t look bright. But what would a “post-liberal” world look like?

Oct 15, 2026

Parliament is back in session, and there’s a new Greens leader on the scene to cause trouble for Anthony Albanese. Crikey’s politics reporter Anton Nilsson and journalist Tina Quinn discuss how Labor’s agenda is holding up against attacks from all sides.

Oct 8, 2026

In a special Q&A episode of Cut Through, Rachel puts your questions to long-time Crikey contributors, climate analyst Ketan Joshi and Dr Ben Eltham, about the unfortunate topic de jour: the rapid proliferation of data centres. What are they? Do we actually need them? And what is the benefit — if any — of having them operate on Australian soil?

Oct 2, 2026

It’s been a busy month for our tips hog, Cochon Truffier. The intrepid pig snooped out some internal discussions between NACC staffers which probably should have been had at the pub, investigated the backlash to Mia Freedman’s comments about the Ed Sheeran/Macklemore saga, and dug into why student politicians at Sydney Uni were getting their knickers in a knot over allegations involving horse meat and bribery in Kazakhstan.

Sep 16, 2026

Paul Keating was prime minister of a very different Australia, in a very different geopolitical environment from that of today. How does his ambition for Australia hold up 30 years later? Crikey politics editor Bernard Keane and Professor James Curran from the University of Sydney discuss Keating’s legacy, and whether his approach to foreign policy suffered from the curse of being “right, but too early”.

See all episodes →