Hugh Hardigan joins Amy-Rose Goodey on The House is Digital for an inside look at how policy is actually made in Australia and what industry can do to influence better outcomes.
Drawing on a career spanning Treasury, ministerial offices and economic policy, Hugh explains how ideas move through government, the role of Treasury and Cabinet, and what happens behind the scenes before major policy decisions are made.
The conversation explores the difference between advocacy and lobbying, why governments need industry to bring practical solutions rather than problems alone, and how strong industry consensus can accelerate reform.
Amy-Rose and Hugh also examine Australia’s productivity challenge, regulation, AI and technology policy, business dynamism and the need to ensure Australia’s regulatory environment supports innovation while protecting consumers.
A rare look inside the policy machine and a practical discussion about how government and industry can work together to build Australia’s next economy.
speaker-1: Sure. Yeah. Look, it’s a it’s been a bit of a journey, actually. I started well, I studied economics at university, didn’t know what I was gonna do, and sort of had long hair at the time. I was a bit of a hippie. And then ⁓ I did honors in economics, and then someone called me up from Canber and said, ⁓ I think you’d really like Treasury. And I and I I was quite dismissive of that. But I ended up going down there. So I started in a graduate program in the mid two thousands and that was sort of the beginning of my government sort of journey. ⁓ and I worked in Treasury for the best part of a decade, which was an absolutely great place to start a career. And then but I got itchy feet sort of after about seven or eight years and then I had friends working in ministerial offices. So I I jumped at an opportunity to go and work with the trade minister. Yeah. Which was, you know, an amazing experience travelling around the world with him. He’s a friend of mine today, Craig Emerson. ⁓ but did couple of years with him, the itch was still there. And then I was Chris Bowen. Look, I think there’s just a look, you you’re either passionate about politics or you’re not. And unfortunately I’ve got the illness. Okay. so I I I then went I had a call from Chris Bowen’s office at the time. So he was shadow treasurer. So interestingly it was a portfolio that was more suited to my background. And ⁓ you know, he called me up and said, Do you want to come work with me? I need a good treasury sort of
speaker-0: Itch you speak of.
speaker-1: person and started a five to six year period with him. And look, the reason I stayed with him so long is, I mean, he’s not only a great guy, but ⁓ we were doing a lot of juicy policy work. And it’s very relevant at the moment because the budget next week is bringing back a whole lot of the tax policies that, you know, were developed ⁓ over a period of time back then as well. So, you know, so all in all, sort of did about seven years in politics and then ended up sort of switching gears a bit and going and heading up a research team in Housing Australia, which was the government’s new sort of housing delivery arm. ⁓ and I finished up there at the beginning of last year and decided I wanted to go out on my own. And here I am today, principal of Hardigan Associates.
speaker-0: So you’ve been in the weeds for many, many years. What do you think Australians don’t quite understand or ⁓ about policy and how how rules are made?
speaker-1: Yes. Look, my friends ⁓ would be throwing tomatoes at me right now, but I I think the thing that is actually misunderstood is there’s a lot of smart people in Canberra. You know, if I talk about a lot of my friends in the private sector in Sydney, they are very, very suspicious about what goes on in Canberra. They all think everyone’s sort of down there working sort of you know six hour days and not really doing that much. But certainly my time in Canberra, ⁓ I met I could honestly say I’ve met the smartest people I met were in Treasury and to this day, having now traversed through various politics and various other government agencies. ⁓ you know, and and now the private sector with Hardigan and Associates, you know, ⁓ certainly some of the smartest people I’ve ever met. A and then also just the deliberate nature of and structure of the policy process, you know, it’s w really well thought out, ⁓ which we’ll kind of get into a bit more detail of. But yeah, I I think there’s a lot of misconceptions about ⁓ you know, what what happens down in Canberra.
speaker-0: Can you take us through that machine? Take take us through maybe ⁓ we we’ve recently had the digital asset platform legislation come through. They are what feels like a machine down there. Constantly review I think Treasury has the largest portfolio of any department when it comes to law reform. Yep. How do they I think that the last ⁓ Stephen Jones I think had the most in in in history. ⁓ with the reforms that he was trying to churn through. How do they do that?
speaker-1: ⁓ look, Treasury I think the big change in Canberra probably over the last ten years is just how central Treasury has become to the policy process. ⁓ you know, Treasury has probably doubled in size, I think, over the last ten years. So they’ve become absolutely central. And th and there’s a reason for that. I think ministers trust the capability of Treasury, kind of maybe a bit more so than kind of some of those other departments. ⁓ And they trust Treasury will kind of go through, you know, a very sort of structured and deliberate process. You know, Treasury are full of people that generally will think about things with really good frameworks, you know, and the way they approach problems. And I’m sure you’ve had some experience with that. But, you know, the whole process is very deliberate, right? You know, there’s a very you know, it starts off with an idea or a problem, you know, they’ll sort of go through what’s called like an interdepartmental committee process. might be Treasury sort of in a few other agencies. ⁓ and then ultimately, you know, that will end up in a cabinet submission. ⁓ and that cabinet submission will then go to the lead minister, in this case, you know, the treasurer or, you know, ⁓ sort of the financial services minister. And then there’s a lot of jostling up at the political kind of office level around whether it’s fit for purpose. ⁓ digital assets is an interesting one because I don’t think there’d be a lot of questions around all that ’cause it’s quite technical. So but, you know, it it’s an amazing process. I mean, I’ve actually had the benefit of sitting in an expenditure committee room with the Prime Minister and the Treasurer and it’s a pretty amazing process.
speaker-0: Can you explain that room in a bit more detail?
speaker-1: It’s it it’s it’s fascinating. A and what you learn actually by sitting in that room is a lot of decision making is done outside of the room. So by the time that you get into that room with the Prime Minister, the treasurer, you know, the lead, you know, the expenditure review committee is about five or six ministers, a lot of the decisions have been made if the political officers all have all kind of done their job and they’ve all, you know, ⁓ jostled in the right way and got people on board and pro probably the thing that’s worth pointing out as well, and this is very relevant for advocacy. It’s what I call the triumvirate in terms of, you know, that sort of apex of power, which is Prime Minister and Cabinet, Treasury and Finance. When you sit in that room, they’re not kind of, you know, going page by page through a cabinet submission. They’ve got like a cover brief. So they’re not getting in the weeds. And what they’ll do is they’ll look at all the comments of those three agencies and they’ll be very, very high level. So and the takeaway really is when those three agencies are all on the same page and they you know, they support a particular policy. More often than not, things will go straight through with not a lot of ⁓ you know, even with not a lot of conversation. I mean, certainly when I’ve been in there, some of our stuff just I mean it’s remarkable how quickly it all happens actually when you’re in the room. Now, some issues will be a bit more controversial and there’ll be you know people wanting to kind of kinda go in different directions to maybe where the the Prime Minister and the a treasurer is happy with, but a lot of a lot of kind of more technical, smaller aspects of policy will will go straight through. Yeah, it’s really interesting.
speaker-0: You touched on advocacy and maybe we can even talk a little bit about lobbying itself. How does advocacy play into that process? If ⁓ at the end at the end of the line there’s this room and there’s discussions happening, there’s alignment and there are bills that end up getting passed. What how does advocacy play a part in all of that?
speaker-1: Yeah, look, it’s an important part because I think when you’re in that room, they will be some of the conversations that will be had. ⁓ there is no point in a minister or a treasurer or whoever going into a room and saying, A, I haven’t run a deliberate policy process, B I haven’t consulted with anyone, B, I can’t answer the simple question which is who’s gonna back us in on this? You know, that will be a always a standard question, you know, in that room, who’s gonna back us in? So ⁓ and that’s quite hard because sometimes finding middle ground with policy, you sort of might not have anyone sort of fully on board, right? It might be kind of in the middle. But the advocacy is critical and I think that ⁓ you know, it really points to ⁓ and we might get into a bit more of this in detail, but I I think the opportunity for industry and the way industry organise themselves is really, really critical. ⁓ I think lobbying kind of done well. I think when it’s done badly. I think that, you know, industries will sort of bowl up problems to government, you know, without solutions. ⁓ you know, I would sort of say the gold standard of policy making and sort of advocacy is industries organizing themselves, ⁓ building consensus within the industry, having absolute clarity kind of over the problem, and then being able to go to government and saying, here’s two well thought-out solutions. We can categorically say that the majority of the industry will back you in on this. ⁓ and essentially we’ve helped you solve a problem. That’s the gold standard, right? Because then a minister will be like, ⁓ fantastic. All right. That’s a lot easier for me to either get that, throw it down to Treasury, you know, get a brief on it, and get it kind of into that sausage making process. So I think, you know, I think when it’s done badly, it’s sort of industry sort of going to government saying, ⁓ we’ve all these problems. We need you to help us solve them. And that’s I think that’s where things, you know
speaker-0: Is there a difference between advocacy and lobbying?
speaker-1: It’s a good question. Lobbying has it’s a bit of a dirty word in some kind of a way, right? So it’s it’s sort of it’s a bit of a dirty word. Yeah. ⁓ but I would look, I would probably say the difference is I think the way I think about advocacy and lobbying is advocacy is more policy focused and lobbying is more probably more relationship focused. So it’s kind of like, All right, I need to go and advocate
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Because I’ve got these problems in my industry and we need to go and get changes from government. So I’d probably say advocac advocacy is like we’ve kind of got the problem, we sort of know what the solution is. Where are the keys to get me through the door? Yeah. And then you might kind of, you know, reach out to a lobbying firm. You know, lobbying firms are really just about opening doors for people. And I think that’s kind of why it becomes a bit of a dirty word. Because, you know, well yeah.
speaker-0: Okay, and so we have in the industry coming together and putting through putting together their views and solutions. So is there a way in which or is there a world in which the government would draft legislation or pass legislation if the industry itself didn’t put those solutions forward? Does it take longer? What does it mean if it
speaker-1: Longer. Yeah. and and think about it from a consultation process. You know, the standard sort of if you go back sort of several decades, I mean when I was working, say in Treasury, you there used to be this standard consultation process where it’s like you put out a green paper, which is sort of like here are all the issues, here’s a bunch of questions. Then you put out a white paper, which is sort of forward-leaning on what we think the solution is. You go through another consultation process. So I think that when industry comes up with the solutions, you’re just cutting out some of those processes. processes. ⁓ and and I think the I think the benefit of industry doing the work as well is you you probably have less risk of unintended consequences. You know, industry will be very will be more focused on imp implementation aspects of policy. ⁓ I mean I remember when I was at Treasury back a long time ago now when Ken Henry was was the secretary and there was an acknowledgement back then, you know, sort of twenty years ago that probably one of the the sort blind spots of Treasury was implementation. You know, it was sort of like we’re very we’ve got an organisation full of great economists, very smart people, we come up with very good policies, but we probably don’t, you know, engage enough with industry to understand practically how things can be implemented. My observation is Treasury has come like you know, there there’ve come leaps and bounds forward since then on on that. ⁓ I mean I’ve been engaging with Treasury on a bunch of other sort of areas more recently and I mean their engagement’s been been really good. But I think ⁓ I think that’s the benefit of of being forward leaning on the solutions. Yeah.
speaker-0: Is there let’s talk about tech policy. Yeah. It’s quite complicated. At the moment it’s probably the most complicated policy globally to draft. Yeah. Especially if you have to go to industry and ask for solutions. Yeah. When all we can really see let’s talk AI, for example. How do you come up with a solution to a problem that you can see but you don’t quite know how? Like how how do you do that?
speaker-1: Look, I think ⁓ probably the way I’d answer that is and I think there’s a big discussion going on at the moment about how we approach look, AI, I think most people would agree the speed at which AI is advancing is exponential. That makes law making incredibly difficult. So you’ve really got to take a step back and sort of think, well, how can we think about law making? that actually can help facilitate a technology that is advancing at such speed. So it’s got to be flexible. it’s got to be sort of risk adjusted and proportionate, you know, principles based as opposed to sort of really prescriptive. I think too often, ⁓ in fact, I think there’ll be some stuff in the budget on this next week. You know, w the Productivity Commission has done a whole range of reports. There was one on harnessing digital technology that we you’re probably aware of. But, you know, this is all about and but one of them was on business dynamism. And I think in Australia we’ve sort of let things go too long without having sort of more structure around the way we think about regulation, you know, ⁓ assess new regulations, ⁓ review the stock of regulations. And so we’re sort of layering and layering and layering. And I think we don’t have ⁓ you know, we need to understand that risk can’t be eliminated. You know, and that’s very relevant in the digital asset space, right? We can’t eliminate risk. Really, how do we optimise risk? That is, we have to accept there’s gonna be a little bit of risk, ⁓ to facilitate an amount of business dynamism and productivity in the economy that I think most governments would would would would w would want to be there. I mean, it’s a very difficult balancing act, but I I would hope next week the treasurer he’s been sort of pretty vocal about wanting to do something on productivity. I think there’s gonna be ⁓ some statements in the budget to that effect next week, hopefully.
speaker-0: On the productivity side of things, is that because you mentioned treasury, they are quite focused on the eco the economics of good policy. And so we are looking at the economy on the whole, productivity, how we uplift Australia. So when it comes to tech policy, I guess you mentioned that, you know, we need to we need that uplift and there’s a focus on that. What are the I guess the ⁓ primary levers that we can pull on that can for Australia that can push us up when it comes to technologies are
speaker-1: Look, I think I think look, the difficult thing about technology is sort of, you know, it at a high level, we all know technology has been probably the principal driver of living standards in the country, you know, over the last two, three day I mean probably really going back centuries. ⁓ but a lot of the sort of enabling aspect of technology is pretty silent. You know, and I think that, you know You know, I think a lot of the stuff we see on technology can be focused a bit on the negative stuff. ⁓ you know, and people getting scammed and all all those types of things. But I think that’s where the opportunity is. You know, I mean, I was thinking like when was the last time you saw a four corners that was focused on the benefits of technology and, you know, how it’s lifted all boats and all that kind of stuff, right? So often we see a four corners focused on people getting scammed in the financial services industry. So, you know, the pain’s loud. I think the successes are silent. But the enabling aspect of tech technology and I think that’s where the opportunity is. Now, technology is really, you know, if we think about technology today and a lot of what’s being built out through blockchains, you know, AI, even going back to the internet, you know, the this is really the infrastructure of the 21st century, right? And so it’s but it’s the base layer. And so, you know, essentially if we’re looking back in a hundred years, we’re going to look back on this period and say, ⁓ wow. That was the new infrastructure being laid out. But we’re probably not going to be focused a lot on that. We’re more going to be focused on the industries that were built on top of it. And I think that’s the I think that’s the extra dot that becomes a bit harder because you’re sort of in the weeds talking about all these technic you know, technical aspects of technology. But you’ve got to join that extra dot to sort of explain to people why is this important, what will this enable, you know, in terms of new industries, new jobs, etc.
speaker-0: And how does the government balance that? You’ve got to think about tax, the wider economy, socioeconomic status, and then you have to think of what’s the economic impact of this and okay, we can roll this out, but what can Australia actually survive? How does the government balance that? How does it does it have a magic ball?
speaker-1: Look, ⁓ it is true, ⁓ the bandwidth of governments at the moment is very narrow for smaller issues, right? Yeah. and and the and the age old ⁓ sort of what should I put it? The age old excuse for not getting laws done fast enough is not enough drafters in Canberra. I’m sure you may have heard of that over the years. I mean, is the it is the cloud. ⁓ it’s still the case. Yeah. Yeah, it’s still it’s still running around. ⁓ I’ve never quite understood it, but it is something that exists. ⁓ But I mean, look at what the current government is dealing with at the moment. They’re dealing with a fuel crisis. ⁓ They’re dealing with an economy where living standards have been going backwards. ⁓ They’re dealing with an economy that absolutely needs new productivity boosts. And so, I mean, I would sort of look at it not in a negative sense, it’s sort of like what’s the opportunity here? You know, and I think that, you know, if there are small sort of, you know, augmentation to laws which can really open up you know, new industries and new ways of doing things. I mean that’s I always think and also playing to each government is gonna have there’s a there’s always gonna be a big economy wide zeitgeist. I mean cost of living is critical at the moment. I don’t see that going anywhere over the next couple of years, right? So how do you play into those issues, right? So how does like the digital economy go to government and say, if we don’t get this done, we are gonna not be able to kind of like put things in place to reduce cost of living for everyday consumers and particularly for the Labour government. low and middle income earners. Yeah. You know, so there are each party’s gonna have their own value system. So there’s always gonna be a bit of a nuance to what you’re playing to. But I think that’s where the opportunity is.
speaker-0: And if you had a magic eight ball, would you say that we’re heading in the right direction when it comes to that economic opportunity, the digital economy on the whole? Are we a bit slow? Are we moving? The leading question.
speaker-1: I mean in I I would say ⁓ so I’d answer it in two ways. I think slow definitely. ⁓ I think we have to acknowledge the context, right? You know, we are in a fourth turning period of societies across the world. ⁓ we are seeing I mean, probably the thing I was thinking on the way over here was probably the starkest thing to think about is two decades ago Globalization was pointed to as the thing that lifted all boats, that lifted billions of people out of poverty. Now globalization is being pointed out as a problem. Right? It’s not doing what it said it was going to do, it’s leaving lots of people behind, and if anything, econom economies are now looking more inward. So that is a very different you know, we don’t want migration anymore. I mean, you know, this is a very, very, very different landscape. ⁓ the political reality is way more different now than I think it was even ten or fifteen years ago. And I think that makes things a lot more difficult. but, you know, I also think I also think people vote with their hip pockets, you know, a lot of the time. ⁓ as I said to you, look, you know, if you look at income per person, ⁓ it’s been declining for the last, you know, sort of half a dozen years or so. I mean, I think income per person is now thinking ten percent down on where it was four or five years ago. So the pain is being felt. ⁓ and again, going full circle to where we started, how how do we and you know, how does government partner with industry to come up with those solutions that make it easy for government to cut through the limited bandwidth? I think that’s really critical, right? So instead of going to government with problems, understand they’ve got limited bandwidth. Go to them with problems but clear cut solutions and and with an industry that can kind of really get behind them.
speaker-0: At DECA that’s what we do. We always pop a few solutions in when we when we I’m j well, we we learned that ⁓ a while ago. just because it’s it fast tracks a few things. It does it it it does. ⁓ it makes things more efficient also ⁓ within d the departments. U y we you mentioned that i industry can contribute and also it’s a bit of a different landscape at the moment with
speaker-1: No deck is better.
speaker-0: government and politics. Australians are very it might be social media. It might just be all of the crises that are currently that Australians are going through at the moment. But everyone has an opinion. Yes. And so that is very public and people are not quiet about it often at the moment anyway. Is that ⁓ contributing to the government at the moment, would you say? Or their decision?
speaker-1: Yes. I mean, there’s two ways to answer this. I I think it is, but certainly I mean, my old boss Chris Bowen, right? I mean, he would always say, you know, swimmers don’t complain about the length of the swimming pool. You know, you sort of y you you’re working within the context. I mean, in some respects, I mean look at look at, you know, love him or hate Donald Trump. He uses technology very effectively to communicate, right? ⁓ and I think, you know, no one has used X more effectively than Donald Trump, right? ⁓ as I said, love and more hate. But yeah, no, no, no, no. But but i it’s sort of so I think that, you know, there would have been there would have been more there would have been different challenges back, say, thirty or forty years ago, right? You know, maybe the challenge back then would have been how do we get through to people, how do we communicate there’s not enough tools? Now we’re flooded with tools. So how do you cut through the noise? And I think, you know, again, we’re gonna come back to this this same old theme, which is how do you you know, how do you as an industry a and also just more broadly, right? Like so it’s not just say DECA corraling industry directly with your members, but how do you build kind of armies, you know, like more broadly, the tech sector and you go even broader than that? Because I think when you build those broad consensuses, you know, I’m working with a firm at the moment and encouraging them a lot to sort of like look more widely than sort of, you know, their own membership. It’s like, how do you bring these partnerships together. As I said, it is so powerful to go to government and say, we’ve brought these four peak bodies together with all their members and and we’re putting kind of like, you know, what we’re putting forward is is is backed by this broad consensus. And again, you make government’s life so much easier when you can do that.
speaker-0: It’s rallying the troops. And rallying the troops. And at at the moment there is, particularly in industry associations, is ⁓ quite an overlap of membership and interest. t tech intersections, intersections of verticals. ⁓ at the moment everyone is going digital. Everyone has a foot in digital and and a foot in physical. So I think even the landscape of advocacy is going to change soon. Particularly given ⁓ access to ⁓ platforms that you can share your views on. Yeah. And then AI to consolidate those views. And so there’s so much there’s an opportunity for industry association, but that’s not what this podcast episode is about. But thank you for letting me fly my flag there. so so in the future, Australia, we we have some opportunities. We could fall behind. We are a little bit slow. What is one thing that you think we could do better? if if we want to reach all of our milestones, if we want that economic uplift, if we want to be the best Australia that we can be.
speaker-1: Look, I think there’s a few. ⁓ certainly some of the things look if I if I take a step back and the Treasurer’s been out there talking about this, we have a productivity problem. ⁓ we’ve got a an economy that lacks business dynamism, ⁓ that’s well documented. And I think we need to I think get back to the understanding that we are we you know I’m very thankful to live in a place like Australia. We have an incredibly strong social wage, right? It doesn’t matter what background you’re from, you got that Medicare card, you can go and for it and get free health care. You know, you you build up your savings through a great superannuation system, you can send your kids to school publicly. We have built that up over decades. But I I that social wage is at risk if we don’t get things right. And I think probably the thing that’s been lost over the last couple of decades, partly due to some of the noise that you’re talking about and and and the yelling and screaming is, you know, we haven’t been able to ⁓ link back into understanding that economic dividends, which are the things that help you grow the social wage, come from hard decisions. ⁓ I think that the public is up for a debate on hard decisions, but again I’m not a politician, ⁓ so I I accept that. But I think we need to get more creative and imaginative. I think again that comes back to helping you know, I would say in this environment, you know, the partnership approach with government and being constructive is more important than ever in that approach. You know, so the government may make some announcements next week that not everyone’s happy with, but you know, don’t yell from the sidelines. Get in there and talk to government, educate it and come up with some pathways, you know, to sort of how it can address it. But look at a at a big level if I think about the next decade, ⁓ There are some of the big touch point issues which would affect everyone, including the digital economy, innovation, tax, is is a really big one. You know, we need to reorient our tax system, at a sort of whole of economy level. That’s a really big one. and then probably the other one is is regulation. You know, I I think, you know, it’s interesting just as a as an aside, the treasurer, I don’t know if you’ve heard of this book called Abundance. Have you heard of this book called Abundance? So the Treasurer’s been talking a bit about it. It’s written by two New York Times journalists and you know, it’s a book written for the centre left of politics, which is like the Labour Party. And sort of its observation is Labour parties often will have knee-jerk reactions to putting more regulations in place to protect consumers, right? But their observation is but they also are the same parties that want to do the nation building. You know, they wanna build the infrastructure, they wanna get the investment into renewables in the country. And so th the whole thesis of the book is, you know. centre left governments need to get out of their own way, right? And let economies thrive. And I think the fact that that’s resonated with the current treasurer, ⁓ I think is is, you know, should give us a little bit of comfort.
speaker-0: It’s gonna be pretty hard to do given I think we’re number ten in the most regulated countries in the world. and that’s very difficult to innovate in. Yep. ⁓ and then you think about it globally, and I I wanna ask this one because I often think about the global digital economy and and who we are, where we sit as a nation. If we are regulating too much, how are we going to build the systems that everyone else around us is building and then be being able to interoperate or work with the rest of the world. Yep. How are we gonna have the same systems if we don’t build them and be sovereign? Well
speaker-1: We’re not. No. And and and I think that comes back to again, ⁓ you know, the the challenge and the opportunity is pointing out I think best practice regimes overseas. I that that’s always something I think treasury is alive to, you when you go and talk to Treasury, they want to know what the best practice regime is that industry sees. But, you know, it sort of goes to what we were talking about earlier. I mean, Australia needs to become more agile. ⁓ it absolutely needs to reorient its tax regime and this business dynamism. I’m I’m quite ⁓ Daniel Wood, who you may or may not know is the chair of the Productivity Commission, you know, she put out a great report last year on this. And her approach is that we need a complete reset on regulation. The OECD’s been talking about it too. It is, you know, it is becoming something that I think more people are accepting is a big problem. And, you know, this is not about looking at a single regulation in isolation, right? We the we have to fundamentally reset the way we do regulation. And so That might take bit of time, but it means rebuilding the framework for how we think about regulation. ⁓ I think possibly kind of regulators are gonna play a role in that. You know, I think sometimes we have regulators that are look ⁓ on the whole, we’re lucky to have a very strong ⁓ economy with with with good regulators, but I think they can be sometimes too risk averse on on some matters. And again, I think it’s part of that is the education. How do we balance that business dynamism and innovation versus ⁓ you know, protecting consumers and I think that again it all links back into this story you were talking about before. It’s very noisy out there. You know, ⁓ one thing can happen and then there’ll be a lot of pressure on governments to be like, what are you gonna do about it? You need to go in and bring in a new regulation. So I think that’s when I talk about the framework. There needs to be a much more robust framework in the way that we deal with new regulations, existing stock. ⁓ and I I’m hopeful that the Treasury’s kind of looking at that quite seriously. Yeah.
speaker-0: I think there’s a real opportunity there. Yeah. That hope not hopeful. I guess a complete reset ⁓ I think is going to take some work, but it is absolutely necessary. ⁓ we might be looking at the next generation coming in and doing a a bit of a cleanup, I guess, perhaps, because there is an expectation from the young people that we are more agile. Yeah. I don’t know how the next
speaker-1: You don’t you don’t look too h hopeful. I’m saying very suspicious.
speaker-0: my kids, for example, are gonna come in and go this ’cause things they want things right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the w the way the government runs I think is is going to change. That’s ⁓
speaker-1: Well, I mean, even looking forward, you’re talking about your kids, I mean I’ve got young kids as well. I mean, what will the economy look like, right? With AI and you know, I mean, ⁓ the opportunity is gonna be there to really disrupt the corporation, the standard corporation, you know, further disintermediation. ⁓ ⁓ so the opportunities are gonna be there, but you’re right. I think you know it’s about how you know, making sure that the technology is available for people, but also that they can easily start a business, for instance. Right? And if they if their business fails easily, you know, move on to the next thing.
speaker-0: And I I think anyone can start a business. Anyone can build drag and drop, an AI product, any I think I saw an advertisement recently, ⁓ launch your own cryptocurrency exchange with this platform, drag and drop, build it. Right. Yeah. So I think that ⁓ there’s a incoming generation who’s going to expect to just be able to work, operate, make money in their country. Yeah, ⁓ with little friction, but then you’ve always got to consider the consumer protection. So it’s a hard
speaker-1: That’s a very different difficult balancing act, yes.
speaker-0: Okay, so we’re gonna wrap up. Okay. ⁓ you have twenty-five years under your belt. Yep. Is it twenty-five? Nearly twenty-five years under your belt? If my math is correct. In the next ten years you said, well, there’s a few things that we could do. What are what’s a massive red flag for us if you could give a message to the government? What’s something that you think we should absolutely avoid?
speaker-1: I we can’t be stagnant. I mean it’s it it’s as simple as that. ⁓ and I think I well, and I and I would sort of go back to what I was sort of talking about before. You know, we’re in this sort of t forth turning kind of period. ⁓ so we have to also be realistic. ⁓ you know, i there are other countries
speaker-0: Are we?
speaker-1: You know, where they are having very serious conversations about whether democracy’s gonna hold strong, whether about democratic institutions, whether they’re gonna survive. So I think like we need to work top down here. ⁓ but a lot of these things are linked. You know, if we go back to that globalisation conversation, globalisation did lift all boats a at an aggregate level. But there were a few small boats that were left behind. Yeah. And they fested and they’ve grown and they’ve become louder and louder. We’re seeing that in the US with the rise of populism. I think if we look at the changing structure of politics in Australia at the moment, we’re sort of starting to see it here. That is really gonna make things more challenging, ⁓ in terms of engaging in these debates, right? ‘Cause you’re gonna have more native nativist views, you know, more inward looking approaches. ⁓ so look it’s gonna be a challenge, but look, you know, I would probably look at the current government. I was thinking about this the other day. You’ve got an incredibly well credentialed Labour government at the moment. ⁓ I mean a number of key people in prominent positions. PhD economists, ⁓ Andrew Charlton, ⁓ you know, Dan Molino, Andrew Lee, who I saw the other day actually. I mean there’s a lot of really, really good, smart people there. I think Al Benezi is a is a pragmatist, but he’s built up a lot of political capital now. So, you know, the hope is that if the government announces some reforms next week that there’s enough support for them and they can keep moving forward with it. I think that’s really that’s what I’m hoping for, because if we don’t, we’re gonna keep seeing living standards slide ⁓ and the pain is gonna be real for longer.
speaker-0: Like you said earlier, I think the living standards, everything is probably all the issues we’ll probably pursue for a few years, yet we’ve got to get ourselves out of that.
speaker-1: Well then there’s a lagged effect. I mean, economic dividends unfortunately don’t sort of ⁓ come overnight the moment a law’s passed through Parliament, right? So it can take it can take some time. But again, I think it’s important to build up that evidence to tell that story because, you know, we need to turn the ship around. Again, the g the government is well aware of this, has been talking about it. It’s not easy. ⁓ but ⁓ you know, I I’m I’m hopeful I I think next week will be a really strong signal in terms of their intent, at least short term intent. ⁓ But you know, there’s a lot of ⁓ there’s a lot of pol political headwinds as well.
speaker-0: Well, it’s been lovely to have you, Hugh Harding. It’s it’s a pleasure. Thank you for coming on the Houses. Did you
speaker-1: My pleasure.
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