Australia's productivity roundtable should consider what actually makes life harder

Only a fortnight to go before the treasurer's National Economic Reform Roundtable!

With submissions rolling in to the Canberra summit, the nation finds itself in the exciting middle stage of our triphasic national economic policy cycle: "Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom".

That is to say, we've moved past Phase One (Grumbling About Why Politicians Don't Do Bold Reform Anymore) and are enjoying the brief efflorescence of Big Ideas before we initiate Phase Three (Methodically Weed-Killing Every Single One Because They All Make Someone Sad).

See also: Kevin Rudd's 2020 Summit, Tony Abbott's 2013 Budget, Malcolm Turnbull's Ideas Boom, and whatever it was that Scott Morrison was going to do before the world caught the spicy cough.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has valiantly called for participants to bring budget-neutral ideas that are not motivated by sectoral self-interest. But these are hard habits to kick, and in the Big Ideas so far submitted, the customary palimpsest of tax reform is already evident; big business has some compelling ideas for how they could pay less tax, the unions for how they could pay more, and so on. Here's a submission outlining how we could have more of the things we like, and how those things could be funded by taxing more of the things you like. Thank you, the end.

Carbon pricing! A cashflow tax! Retooled R&D incentives! Taxes broadened! Tax rates flattened! If there's one sector where productivity isn't a problem right now, it's economists with big ideas writing beefy submissions on how to address the nation's productivity rate, curving gently earthward these last ten hectic years.

Submissions no ordinary citizen will read. Why would we? Productivity is something only economists understand, like the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment, or the difference between real and nominal GDP.

Asking the big human questions

But what if the conversation about productivity didn't start at an economics reform summit?

What if it started in the nation's kitchens? At the school gate? In the dentist's waiting room?

Because that's where a huge chunk of Australia's productivity gains could be made. And where some of the least-acknowledged productivity engines in the country currently lose a lot of time blowing smoke.

What if we reframed our way of talking about drags on productivity so that you wouldn't need an economics degree to whistle along?

Even the term "productivity drag" is deceptive. It is, literally, a human phenomenon in economic drag. What it really means, in the baldest terms, is "headache-inducing and unnecessary complication that gets in the way of getting sh*t done."

So if we're going to be in the business of asking big questions, let's make sure we ask not just the big economic questions, but the big human ones. Remembering that they're not always the same thing.

Questions like: Why does the school day end at 3pm, when in the vast majority of households with two parents and kids aged under 14, both parents now work?

In the 1970s, only 40 per cent of such families had both parents in employment. The more common arrangement — in 55 per cent of households even by the late 70s — was that dad worked, and mum took care of the rest.

But today, in 73 per cent of two-parent families, mum and dad both work.

Which means we are now running a national economy where the backup plan for sick days, school pick-up, dental appointments, and Oh-My-God-I-Forgot-My-Book-Week-Costume is… Well. It's a matter of day-to-day improvisation.

And while the human brain's relentless capacity for innovation has coughed up artificial intelligence, and seamless transition to a new iPhone, and a means of firing Katy Perry into space, it hasn't managed to work out a stress-free way of getting a child's teeth looked at in the middle of the day at a dentist across town, with extra time for janky online approvals at both ends to bounce the juvenile owner-operator of the teeth from the custody of the school, plus traffic.

Nor can we design a human interface for the Australian aged care system that enables a normally intelligent adult to look after an elderly parent without taking six months off work and feeling like they're the first human on earth to attempt the task.

What counts as a productivity issue?

This is a failure of economic design. A brutal one.

Because in this country while we have umpteen trained theorists looking at in-built incentives in the tax system or whatever, we still haven't found a way of absorbing the fact that one in seven school children will require mental health assistance every calendar year in Australia, and adding another fact — that children seeking assistance from a trained mental health professional currently wait an average 99 days for an appointment — and deciding that in total this amounts to a national productivity issue.

Who's spending hours on the phone chasing appointments for these children? Losing sleep worrying about them, and standing in as best they can in the meantime? Who's forcing themselves through snowdrifts of confusing paperwork for NDIS registration or in-home care or even just the daily Sisyphean task of finding clean socks, or the shirt without the weird paint stain because everyone just remembered it's school photo day?

We know who's doing it. Australian Institute of Family Studies researcher Jennifer Baxter asked perceptive questions during her COVID-era research and elicited evidence that in around 78 per cent of heterosexual couples, mum is carrying most or all of the mental load.

Every family is different, of course. Many will buck the trend. (Including mine! I'm finishing this column in peace, in a busy week, because my other half has prepped dinner in advance.)

But there's no doubt at all about the broader pattern here. Australian women are better educated than their male counterparts, live longer, do more unpaid work and — where they do get paid for work — get paid less than men. In productivity terms, they are a powerhouse waiting to happen. They account for 70 per cent of the part-time work in Australia, and 70 per cent of the housework. Usually, the flexibility of the former facilitates the accomplishment of the latter.

Assumptions haven't changed since 1880

Australian women work part-time at internationally-remarkable rates so that they can manage the unpaid work that is still generally understood to be their responsibility.

In New South Wales' Public Instruction Act of 1880 — the legislative instrument that established the secular public education system in Australia's largest state and set the school hours that are unchanged to this day — the assumptions are magnificently broad.

For instance, clause 79 of the accompanying regulatory schedule provides that: "In schools containing female children but no female teacher, it will be the duty of the teacher's wife to teach needlepoint to the girls during at least four hours in each week."

It's funny to read this antiquated text. But also, it's worth remembering that the assumptions underpinning school hours have not changed since 1880.

This is kind of wild. And as fast as our assumptions about the rest of the world are changing, there isn't much change to the assumption that women will pick up the extra slack when it comes to caring for other humans, young or old.

It's proper work, in that it requires dedication and expertise, and it's not rendered less valuable economically by the mere fact of being powered by love and concern.

But because we don't count this work using the usual economic measure (ie, paying for it), it sometimes escapes conventional calculations and is just assumed to happen magically, as if fairies do it.

More than an economic concept

Imagine what could be achieved if the productivity drags were removed from the life of the juggling parent! Imagine — for instance — if schools were serviced by dedicated teams of dentists and psychologists and speech pathologists who were right there to help kids exactly when they needed help! Imagine if managing all this was easy, instead of hard!

Imagine if sports and activities were part of the school day, towards the end, so that parents could get their work done and pick up kids who'd made it to footy without having to be ferried there by a distracted parent trying to do a Zoom at the same time, or fretting about having to double back to work later?

Productivity is an economic concept, but it's fired — or should be fired — by the universal human experience of being driven mad by unnecessary bullsh*t that makes life harder. Let's lean in to it!