The period when... Australia's productivity was great and reform was happening was not when government and business were working together, but when government and labour [the workers] were working together.

That was the 80s and early 90s, when productivity grew more than 2 per cent a year versus the current decade average of 0.3 per cent, and minus 0.7 per cent in the 2024-25 financial year.

An obvious difference between now and the 80s and 90s reform era is that the ACTU is a shadow of what it was and is involved in the national discussion from the stands, not on the field of play.

The most powerful players in national policy [now] are lobbyists, as Four Corners showed... last week, and they work for those who pay the most: businesses and their organisations.

A big part of the union movement's decline in influence is simply the decline in union membership, from around 60 per cent to around 10 per cent, and it is focused on government and service industries.

This means labour is no longer institutionalised to the same extent, so political classes can no longer easily speak to the working classes. Employers, on the other hand, are well represented by lobbyists and groups like the BCA, who put on lunches and dinners, both large and intimate.

An important reason for the recent slump in productivity growth has been the decline in real wages, and the fact that per capita household income has been negative for years after inflation — it simply is not true that struggling financially spurs people to be more productive; the opposite happens.

What is more, the decline in productivity growth has coincided with a fall in the growth rate of business investment from 2.2 per cent in 2015 to zero in 2025, while the profit share of the economy has increased sharply and the labour share has fallen.

In other words, the evidence suggests that Australia's businesses have been milking the economy.