As Australia approaches the 2025 Federal Election, the Business Council of Australia is calling on all sides of politics to address the nation's most pressing challenges with new policies to improve living standards, build more homes and create better business conditions to drive economic growth.
The BCA has unveiled its election blueprint, providing detailed policy recommendations to address the five critical questions identified at its Annual Dinner in September of last year.
Business Council Chief Executive Bran Black said Australians deserve policies that tackle the real problems facing our nation with long-term solutions.
"The Business Council is calling on all parties to adopt practical, evidence-based and long-term policies to ease cost-of-living, build more homes, develop a highly skilled workforce and ensure businesses continue to grow and drive national prosperity," Mr Black said.
"This election and the period beyond must prioritise reforms that will make our economy stronger and more resilient, boost living standards and, overall, make Australia a better place to invest and do business."
"I am consistently told that Australia's regulatory settings are uncompetitive and are causing us to lose out on the critical investment needed to drive future prosperity - fixing this has to be a national priority."
The Business Council's Big Five Questions and policy recommendations for the 2025 Federal Election are:
How do we ease the cost-of-living crisis for Australians?
How do we tackle the housing crisis?
How do we achieve net zero by 2050 with affordable and reliable energy?
How do we develop a skilled workforce for the future?
How do we deliver the health and care services Australians need?
The BCA believes these areas need to be urgently addressed given that economic growth is its weakest in three decades, outside of the pandemic, and productivity growth has fallen back to 2016 levels. Australians have also experienced seven consecutive quarters of negative GDP per person growth.
The Big Five outlines that reducing inflation is key to easing the cost-of-living, including by controlling the budget by capping spending growth to an annual rate of two per cent and reinstating the tax-to-GDP ratio cap of 23.9 per cent, and lifting productivity by simplifying the tax system, creating better trade and investment opportunities and supporting research commercialisation.
Deregulation also needs to be on the agenda, with the BCA calling for the reappointment of a Minister for Deregulation to bring a laser sharp focus to the critical task of cutting red tape and boosting productivity with more efficient government systems and processes, particularly for environmental approvals and business licencing.
"Other jurisdictions around the world, and especially the United States, are looking to make their regulatory systems more efficient - if we don't follow suit then we will lose investment and see a consequent reduction in our way of life," Mr Black said.
Addressing the housing supply crisis has also been highlighted as a priority, with the BCA calling for further federal action to help fast-track new developments.
"We are currently running 64,000 new homes per year behind on the Government's five-year target of 1.2 million new homes - if we want to deliver on this objective, we have to make it easier to build."
Specific recommendations include increasing the funding envelope of the National Productivity Fund to support developer contributions reform and state transitions from stamp duty to land taxes, undertaking reform of the EPBC Act in line with the recommendations of the Samuel Review, and tackling union corruption.
