Choosing a battleground where the country loses

Anthony Albanese says he will fight the 2028 election on no recession and low average unemployment. The data, and the Reserve Bank's own forecasts, are already moving against him.

If the mark of success for this Prime Minister is not having a recession before the next election, then he has confused not failing with succeeding.

Although maybe this benchmark is justified based on his tragic economic performance since 2022.

Asked on Monday why only one in five Australians trust his government, Anthony Albanese said he would go to the 2028 election on two economic boasts: not one negative quarter of economic growth, and the lowest average unemployment rate of any government in 50 years.

Be suspicious of a Prime Minister who conveniently cherry picks the figures to suit his narrative.

The reason why the economy has avoided a negative quarter is only because there are more of us. GDP is about 7 per cent bigger than it was four years ago, but this hides the more telling indicator of GDP per person which is lower. It fell for six quarters in a row and has risen in just five of the 16 since the election.

Per person, the recession he says he avoided has already happened.

Likewise with unemployment, an average is what you quote when the trend has turned against you. He inherited an unemployment rate of 3.9 per cent, the lowest in 48 years and turned it into 4.7 per cent, with 71,000 more people out of work in the past six months alone.

Perhaps he should justify his measure of success to the extra 222,000 Australians who are out of work since he was elected.

The Reserve Bank's forecasts, published last week, have unemployment rising every six months to 5.1 per cent by the end of 2028.

The same forecasts have growth slowing to 1.3 per cent next year causing HSBC's chief economist, Paul Bloxham to put the chance of a recession next year at 50:50.

And this is the scorecard before any recession arrives. Real wages are 1.4 per cent lower than when Labor took office against prices that are 18 per cent higher.

Significantly, the cash rate, which was 0.35 per cent on election day, is 4.85 per cent, the highest since 2008. Canstar puts the cost of this year's rises alone at $456 a month on a $600,000 mortgage.

The Government conveniently blames the war in Iran forgetting that before the war, the cash rate had already increased to 3.60 per cent and began rising again on February 3, 25 days before it started.

Last week the bank said fuel was only part of the story, and that weak productivity growth "continues to constrain potential growth".

That is the number underneath all the others. Output per hour worked is almost 3 per cent lower than in the quarter Labor took office. An economy that cannot increase what it produces each hour ends up with rising unemployment and rising interest rates at the same time.

Which brings us to the system every employer in the country must work inside. Drawing on HR Nicholls' research, it has become the most complex in the developed world: 122 modern awards containing 205,816 separate rates of pay across 8,739 pages, 70 per cent more than in 2009.

Onto that pile this government has added nine workplace relations Acts and, on our count, 81 separate changes since late 2022. Multi-employer bargaining. Arbitration imposed when bargaining stalls. Same job, same pay. Union delegates' rights in every award. A right to disconnect.

Every hour an employer spends decoding all this is an hour not spent producing anything.

How can you expect productivity from a system designed to limit it through complexity?

They take decisions about how work is organised out of the workplace, the only place productivity has ever been lifted, and hand them to tribunals, union officials and Canberra.

They make it dearer to hire, riskier to change and harder to reward the people who do more.

They have made a bad position worse.

When the Productivity Commission was sent to find out why Australian business has lost its dynamism, the Treasurer's terms of reference specifically excluded workplace relations. This was clearly an admission that the Government knows just how destructive their changes have been but is doing everything to avoid the scrutiny of the facts laid bare.

No recession is not an achievement. It is the least a country is entitled to expect.

Enjoy the overseas summits, Prime Minister. Those extra 222,000 unemployed Australians will still be out of work when you land back home.