David Alexander doorstop on National Accounts and Workplace legislation
Transcript 3 June 2026
David Alexander:
I want to talk about a couple of things today. Firstly, the National Accounts were out this morning. They show a slowing of the economy in the March quarter to 0.3 per cent and per capita backwards 0.1 per cent. We're concerned that this shows a slowing economy with even slower growth in the future and then the prospect of extra taxes falling on business beyond that. So this is a worrying set of circumstances. There were some bright spots in the National Accounts. Business investment is up significantly and that is a very welcome development. That's really a data centre investment story. Nevertheless, that will help to sustain growth into the future. The other key concern in the National Accounts was the productivity performance going backwards by 0.6 per cent. This is very concerning.
The Reserve Bank has made loud and clear the importance of lifting productivity levels and this reverse move is deeply concerning. The second thing I wanted to talk about was workplace relations. This morning in the house, the government introduced a bill which was seeking to deal with the Fair Work Commission's workload with a problem arising from AI generated complaints swamping them. But in that bill, which is otherwise the principle of that is fine, there's a provision to allow the government to discriminate against businesses that don't use union endorsed agreements. We think this is a very concerning development. Up until now, the government has been expressly prohibited from discriminating against businesses according to the workplace arrangements that they have. This will change that to allow the government to discriminate against businesses that don't meet those union preferred agreements. So this is going to penalise businesses. It's going to drive up the costs of contracting the government and procurement to taxpayers and it will undermine the principle of freedom of association for employees, but also employers who may prefer not to deal through the unions.
Happy to take questions.
Journalist:
Just on that bill that you mentioned just there, when you say it allows the government to discriminate against non-union agreed workplaces and businesses, what do you actually mean by that? Is that that they don't offer government contracts? Can you just spell that out?
David Alexander:
Yeah. So it's to do with chiefly government contracting for businesses that are contracting to government, say through procurement. So this will allow the government from here to discriminate against businesses that don't utilise the union preferred agreements. So this is a great concern. What it is, is it will entail a structural shift away from best practise businesses, efficient business practises towards union endorsed, less efficient practises. And that can only be a bad thing for the broader economy.
Journalist:
Onto the National Accounts, you mentioned the data centres investment propping up most of the private investment. The Treasurer says that that's a positive, but would not be drawn on the state of the rest of business investment in Australia. What is the feeling as of March 2026 when it came to business investment? That feels like a bit hard to imagine just at the start of the Iranian conflict.
David Alexander:
Yeah. So the data centre story is remarkable. The spike in investment in data centres, and that's a great thing. The broader economy though is really anaemic. The business investment in other sectors is slow, much lower than it should be if we're going to sustain our future investment levels. So this is part of the concerns that we have with the government's tax bills that are in the parliament at the moment. Imposing significant new penalties on investment in business is going to undermine future levels of investment.
Journalist:
And just one of the other figures that you touched on was the per capita GDP growth number going backwards. The Treasurer also said that that's a thing that happens once every few quarters. What do you make of that sort of assessment?
David Alexander:
Well, GDP per capita is critical. That's your standard of living in broad terms for a country. That's what separates first world countries from third world countries. We have a high GDP per capita. If that's stagnating, that goes to the core of our general prosperity as a country. So we do need very much to attend to the GDP per capita as well as of course the GDP.
Journalist:
And you may have already covered this. Apologies. A lot of the GDP growth was propped up by data centres. Is that your take on this as well? Is it sort of masking how tough businesses are really doing it right now?
David Alexander:
There is a welcome lift in business investment in the National Accounts, but clearly that's driven by data centre investment. That's a good thing that data centres are booming, but the broader economy is not that story. Broader businesses are struggling with all sorts of challenges. Business investment in those sectors is actually weak. So we think that that business, broader business investment needs to be attended to by the government.
Journalist:
Because if you don't and your GDP is propped up by data centre investment, do they really employ many Australians? Is that really that helpful for our economy broader picture?
David Alexander:
I think the data centres is a good story, even in and of itself. It does employ Australians. It has spinoff benefits for adjacent industries and it's underpinning the huge take up of AI, not just by business, but by individuals who are utilising this great new technology. So that's a good story, but we can't just sit and delight at the boom in data centres. We have to think about the broader economy, the broader business community.
Journalist:
Great. Thank you.