NSW Productivity Commission releases first discussion paper: ‘Kickstarting the Productivity Conversation’
The NSW Productivity Commissioner, Peter Achterstraat has released the Productivity Commission’s first discussion paper, Kickstarting the Productivity Conversation, with the aim of starting a conversation about how the NSW Government can best support continued growth in the State’s living standards. The paper identifies six priority areas with potential to boost productivity including:
- Building human capital for a modern and evolving economy
- Reliable, sustainable and productive use of our water and energy
- Smart ways to get more from our infrastructure
- Modernising our tax system to help our economy grow
- Planning for the housing we want and the jobs we need, and
- Forward looking regulation to support competition and innovation.
The paper is requesting stakeholder feedback on how to best respond to these challenges, with the deadline for submissions being 27 November 2019. The Property Council will be engaging in the consultation process and making a submission. Next steps include the development of Green Paper to refine priority areas and policy options and White Paper with final recommendations to Government in late 2020. Read more here.
NSW Review of Federal Financial Relations
Earlier this month, the NSW Review of Financial Relations Panel released its first publication, which is a discussion paper with a purpose to generate conversation around how governments can work more effectively together, and how more sustainable and modernised funding arrangement can be put into place to ensure the needs of future generations can be met.
Within the paper, 7 key issues are identified relating to taxation and other revenue sources, along with Commonwealth and State government dependence and interactions.
The review has produced principles for state funding arrangement delivery to guide the recommended options in line with the notions of:
- Distributed fairly across jurisdictions
- Sustainable
- predictable
This comes alongside principles guiding the review’s examination of interactions between Commonwealth funding and the state taxation system:
- Lower
- Simpler
- Fairer
- Efficient
- Sustainable
Submissions are able to be made until 22 November ahead of the Draft Recommendations and Final Report which will be published in 2020. Property Council will be considering this review, if you would like to know more or read the paper, it is available on the NSW Treasury Website here
Update on Local Strategic Planning Statements
Since the first draft Local Strategic Planning Statement (LSPS) was released for comment in June 2019, over the last few months the Property Council has reviewed and identified opportunities and issues across the majority of LSPS’ for Greater Sydney.
Property Council has written and submitted 13 submissions on exhibition including Campbelltown, Liverpool, Ryde, The Hills, Ku-ring-gai, North Sydney, Camden, Cumberland, Willoughby, Blacktown, City of Sydney, Inner West and Sutherland.
A series of eight member briefings have also been arranged and carried out for Property Council members, with presentations from the following councils – Georges River, North Sydney, The Hills, Cumberland, City of Sydney, Willoughby, Hornsby, Burwood, Blacktown, City of Parramatta, Canterbury Bankstown, Inner West, Penrith and Hawkesbury Councils.
For further information on any of the statements or the LSPS process, read more here or please email [email protected]