Luke Yeaman
Luke Yeaman, Deputy Secretary, Macroeconomic Group, Federal Treasury Key points: •
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The diverse nature of Australia’s economy, strong fiscal capacity and substantial programme of infrastructure investment places Australia in a good position to navigate its way out of the COVID-19 crisis.
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For the foreseeable future, governments will seek to use infrastructure investment to help boost confidence, lift economic activity and productivity, and drive down unemployment.
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The infrastructure sector will need to identify productivity-enhancing projects and support early planning and skills development to allow investment decisions to be made with speed and confidence.
I would like to give you a brief snapshot of how we in the Federal Treasury are thinking about the Australian economy, both now and over the next few years, as we hope to move into the recovery mode after this crisis. I would also like to talk about the very important role that we see infrastructure playing in this recovery, as it will be a critical part of the story. The Federal Budget will be handed down in a few weeks’ time, and it will provide much more detail on both the outlook and the plan for recovery, but let me give you a quick highlevel view today. First, let me say a few things about the scale of this crisis. Prior to the pandemic, the Australian economy was fundamentally in good shape. Of course, there are always challenges and we had our share. Our growth was steady, unemployment was low, inflation was contained and our fiscal position was very strong by international standards. Our economy had also shown itself to be incredibly resilient over a long period of time. We were in our 28th year of consecutive economic growth, which is an outstanding record internationally,
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