The end of the COVID-19 commission – The Australian Financial Review

But its role was only ever to provide advice rather than making any decisions.

Power argues the crisis has renewed the focus on the ability of Australian businesses to be more opportunistic about domestic manufacturing.

We were able to input directly into the ears of government and represent issues from a business perspective and a community perspective, bypassing the normal filtering and information flow processes Power tells The Australian Financial Review.

We werent lobbying, we were just presenting information and facts and feedback. We had a very wide, well-connected network.

That included individual board members heading taskforces to report on particular issues, usually with assistance from people seconded from the Productivity Commission or the bureaucracy as well as various other businesses.

The heads of major departments, including Treasury, Prime Minister and Cabinet and Home Affairs, attended board meetings and Morrison dropped in regularly.

Paul Howes, now with KPMG and previously a national union leader, joined the commission as a board member last June, effectively replacing another ex-union official turned corporate player, Greg Combet.

Australia, Howes says, has been well served during COVID-19 by a capable and innovative federal public service. He argues it was still a smart approach to also have a group of individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds to dissect, challenge and advise on policy.

I think it actually does make a difference, he says. If I compare that with my time when the last Labor government was in power federally and we went through the GFC and associated issues around manufacturing, everything was done through traditional tri-partite style bodies with AI Group and the ACTU etc. But no one had conversations because everyone was representing their constituencies without the ability to think independently.

Thats what I thought was unique about this. Ultimately the achievements and the initiatives are those of governments. But it was one of the inputs into policy setting.

Initially, the focus was on providing advice on issues of urgent, practical crisis management such as keeping the ports open and supply chains operating as efficiently as possible while finding new domestic and global supplies of personal protective equipment. Over time, this role changed into advice on how best to cope with a recovering economy and the return to work, especially given the propensity for states to shut borders.

As for lasting impact, Power argues the crisis has renewed the focus on the ability of Australian businesses to be more opportunistic about domestic manufacturing. That, of course, fits neatly with the Morrison governments focus on gas, in part to assist manufacturing businesses with lower energy costs.

This approach has plenty of critics, not least on environmental grounds, as well as scepticism about the ability of a high-cost, resource-based economy to leverage a sophisticated domestic manufacturing strategy.

But it does translate in greater attention across governments and businesses towards building greater self-sufficiency as well as new export possibilities.

This is not about restarting car manufacturing lines and things like that, Power says. It is about flexible manufacturing and playing to our comparative advantage.

The endless policy argument is, of course, on how best to achieve this.

Power does not favour the common demand from big business for across-the-board corporate tax cuts as a way to grow the economy, jobs and wages.

Not that it is on the Morrison governments agenda anyway. Despite intensive lobbying of the crossbench, the Coalition could never get its package through the Senate, meaning it officially abandoned corporate tax cuts ahead of the 2019 election.

Since then the post-COVID-19 mood has also changed the global tax equation. Countries such as UK and the US which championed lower corporate rates are increasing them again although not to previous levels to pay for other spending.

But Power does favour more targeted investment tax incentives to encourage companies to invest in Australia.

I dont mind who owns those companies but its where they invest and where they create those assets and thats the sort of thing our manufacturing industry needs, he says.

Power looks certain to be disappointed by the absence of new incentives in this budget. It wont detract from his hopes for greater government funding of common use infrastructure in industrial precincts, ports and transport to encourage businesses to invest.

So was the ultimate private-sector guy frustrated working with government? Power chuckles. Lets say Ive come to appreciate government processes and the complexities of decision making.

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The end of the COVID-19 commission - The Australian Financial Review