The other week I zoomed in to a book launch. It was for a book I haven’t read but might do. But I was interested to hear what the author had to propose. The book is Reset by Ross Garnaut. He has some interesting ideas about what governments could/should be thinking about for post-covid policies to get the economy moving. I might talk more about it if I get to read the book, but he includes ideas he has published before on harnessing Australia’s advantage in renewable energy and building a new manufacturing industry on this. He also suggests taxation reform among other options.

But what I want to talk about is a comment made on the night by Rod Sims, the Chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. In talking about the theme of Garnaut’s book, he noted that a long list of folks (including unashamedly this author eg see my blog on energy policy) had opined that governments shouldn’t waste the opportunities a crisis offers for reform. He said that the commonwealth had been “lacking the bandwidth” to engage in any reform thinking.

Really? I am absolutely sure – and aware from personal communications – that large parts of the bureaucracy, and I assume the political class – have been working full steam on Covid matters. But please don’t tell me that the folks in Treasury, Prime Minister and Cabinet and some of the line departments, have not also been looking at how do we recover, what opportunities are there for doing things differently?

We all know about how people have adapted and adopted to new and different ways of doing business in the last year. Rapid change has been evident throughout the economy. Sure it’s stressful and not a pace you’d necessarily think is a good idea to try to sustain. But it says so clearly that the status quo is not immutable. We can and should try to do things better and that often means reassessing priorities – what we do – and thinking very creatively about how we do things.

I suspect that “lack of bandwidth” (oh please tell me this isn’t going to become the next awful fave cliche) is possibly a euphemism for “we’re just not interested in this”. This government did indeed win the last election on a pretty clear promise to not to do anything much. It was dragged into a massive spending program pulled together in rapid, and frankly astonishing, quick time, which despite people now poking holes in it with the benefit of hindsight, clearly met its objective of supporting the economy. But as the saying goes “ one swallow does not make a summer” and already the option for doing something really useful for those out of work – oh like offering more than a minor increase in JobSeeker payments – has been forgone.

The bandwidth issue surely can’t relate to suggestions for reforms. There are suggestions coming from all quarters – not just from Ross Garnaut, but numerous others; some well thought out and not just speedy sketchy ideas that sound good. Just off the top of my head I can think of places like the Grattan Institute, Business Council, ACOSS, the Productivity Commission and yes others also with vested interests like some of the consulting companies. I’m pretty sure the State and Territory governments also have ideas. These things do not necessarily need to be huge front page news. I have just been alerted to a paper from the Queensland Productivity Commission, drawing on a wealth of material and research over the past ten years, on ways to reform regulation and regulatory practice. QPR Improving Regulation. And of course academic economists such as Garnaut have been espousing ideas. And let’s not forget all those inquiries languishing or being given halfhearted consideration, thinking aged care, environment, the PC’s report on mental health – and that’s just the ones we’ve been talking about this year! They seem to be falling from the sky.

Sure, from conception to implementation takes time and resources, but more importantly it requires commitment. Commitment was what brought forward the last big concerted reform push in Australia (in case you’re guessing, of course it was the National Competition Policy).

That grew out of the economic turmoil of the early 1990s and was driven by a government determined to get the economy moving and provide a basis for long term gains.

Well here’s another opportunity writ even bigger. And while the figures on recovery to date are encouraging, they can’t hide the fact that we were not exactly flush with success prior to February last year. So getting back to there is good but not the path to long term growth. This point has been made several times over the last few weeks by none other than Philip Lowe governor of the Reserve Bank. And he hasn’t been howled down.

All this points to there needs to be more humility and commitment from the commonwealth to engage with the ideas generators, use the expertise and abilities that have been on full display from the bureaucracy this past 12 month, and think longer term. Accept that the world has changed, and just “keeping an even till” just isn’t viable any more.

I thought I might end this with my own personal wish list. Of course it will be biased towards my own preferences and interests, but it serves to provide an illustration of just what might be possible if government seizes the opportunities and recalibrates the Australian economy.

• Energy policy as a reality not an abstract concept.

• Environmental policy that works – revisit the recommendations of the Samuel report

• Water policy, get the CSIRO a seat at the table for goodness sake.

• Climate policy – if the last 12 months have shown us anything it’s how to tap into and listen to the scientific community and so deal most effectively with matters which rest on scientific work. Or more generally, just listen to those who have important information to inform policy.

• Aged care. I do to need to say more? But a huge rethink about how this is provided in Australia. We need to go back beyond patching the system and shoveling more money at it to a complete rethink about how it is provided and how it is regulated.

What’s missing? Bandwidth, commitment or vision? You decide.