First productivity chief calls for Labor U-turn on policy agenda

Inaugural Productivity Commission chairman Gary Banks says Labor needs to “U-turn, or at least detour” on its economic agenda, saying plans to spend billions of dollars subsiding local manufacturing was a “fool’s errand” that risks repeating mistakes of the past by propping up “political favourites”.

His successor heading the PC, Peter Harris, has meanwhile slammed the quality of the debate and policy response to this generation’s first serious experience with high inflation. “It seems the higher the seriousness, the dumber the policy discourse,” Mr Harris said in a speech on Wednesday.