Innes Willox, Chief Executive of national employer association the Australian Industry Group

Today Show, Sunday, 4 May 2025

Journalist: Our economic growth has struggled in recent years. Can Labor turn it around?

Willox: Congratulations to Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party for a decisive win and it really was important that somebody won the election, clearly. The problems we had on Saturday morning are still with us this morning. We have flatlining economic growth, it is really struggling, anaemic economic growth, productivity at 2019 levels. We have a tax system that is not fit for purpose, we have rising energy costs, businesses are being strangled with regulation and we have geopolitical uncertainty as well, which played a part in the election result – all of which have to be dealt with by the Government. These next three years are going to be very challenging for us economically and we are seeing business really struggle at the moment right across the board. You’ve got manufacturing, construction, retail, hospitality and accommodation all either in recession or very close to recession. So, we are a long way from being out of the woods on economic security and growth.

Journalist: You’re right, they’re not just struggling, many are closing – what needs to be done right now to prevent that?

Willox: We had 151,000 businesses shut their door last year. That’s an enormous number and that is telling us that businesses are doing it tough. That’s across the economy. They are hit by rising rents, rising energy costs and insurance costs. They’re struggling to get labour, they’re struggling to get skilled labour, they’re paying enormous amounts in taxes and charges, regulation is strangling a lot of businesses that can’t cope. We really need government at a federal level, as well as the states, to work through these issues. We want a strong and prosperous economy – we don’t have one at the moment. Cost of living was a big point in the election, cost of doing business flows into cost of living. We really need action quickly to take the burden off business to allow them to grow and employ more Australians.