A three-day working week or higher pay: what a more productive economy could buy Australians

Jim Chalmers has kickstarted a conversation about productivity. If we lift it, what would we do with the dividends of our success: work more or spend more?

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Australians would have a three-day working week if we had collectively decided in 1980 to spend all the productivity gains of the following decades on leisure time instead of buying more stuff, according to the Productivity Commission.

Jim Chalmers has kickstarted a national conversation about reforming the economy to make Australia more productive to underpin the next generation of prosperity. There are plenty of disagreements about how this can be done, but there is general consensus that we should try.