That’s all very solid. The top six are all producitivty improving measures and in the right order of priority with the top two squarely the resposibility of business. But when we turn to how they might be achieved, there is a perverse reliance upon government to do the heavy lifting:
And when it comes to actual bread and butter competition, which is where businesses need, in actuality, need to deliver productivity improvements to their own shareholders, enthusiasm suddenly wanes:
But for government it’s all about improving competitiveness in general:
One wonders how indicative this is of Australian corporate managers. There is no doubt that the Australian business media has a bizarre and hypocritical fixation with celebrating every utterence of the captains of industry, especially those comments that pertain to productivity. Yet it never confronts those same managers with their role in the measure, preferring to blame government exclusively. It’s possible to read this as a moment of epic group think that, like a fog, has settled over the entire business sector. Born of twenty years of easy growth, industry consolidation and dimimshing competition, our business elite may well have developed an enetitlement mentality all of their own.
.
