On 6 August the Chairman of the SA Productivity Commission Mr Adrian Tembel delivered the keynote address to the Committee for Adelaide’s Education to Employment Event, entitled “If we want first-class Government services, we need a system that will deliver them”.

Mr Tembel began his speech by discussing the key findings and recommendations of the Commission’s most recent inquiry "Positioning all South Australians to share in the benefits of economic growth." The inquiry found that South Australia does a much worse job than the national average at giving our young people the skills and support they need to successfully transition out of school into work or education that is meaningful to them.

Overwhelmingly the issues identified weren’t about how good our public school teachers were, but about the systems in which they work and the resources available for non-teaching support. In particular, Mr Tembel noted that the Commission’s research highlighted how difficult it is to build a high performing system if you are not setting clear targets and transparently monitoring your progress.

Mr Tembel went on to reflect on the potential lessons from the Commissions seven years of operations for the recent renewed national focus on productivity enhancing reform, particularly in the context of the forthcoming Economic Reform Roundtable. He noted that there have been repeated focuses on productivity over the past 20 years since productivity growth started to slow. But as a member of the public, you would be justified in asking why all this talk has produced so few results.

Mr Tembel made the case that the failure to reinvigorate productivity growth in Australia has been a failure of leadership across most parts of our economy and society. In particular, he highlighted a reluctance to be open with the public about what meaningful reform entails. That our standard of living isn’t something that can be lifted just by Government, for example, making some revenue neutral adjustments to our tax rates or in the case of our education system, taking a safe, non-controversial approach.

Instead, he noted, it requires leaders across politics, business, the public sector, unions and community organisations, to accept they all need to do their fair share of the hard work of driving change. And that will require all of us to cease the quest for perpetual short-term popularity and trade that off for the noble and courageous quest for long-term respect.

If we want first-class Government services, we need a system that will deliver them