Australia’s Productivity Crisis: Housing, Wealth & Migration Pressures | Clime Roundtable

In this special Clime roundtable, Michael Baragwanath (Managing Director), John Abernethy (Founder & Chair), and Leo Economides (CIO) dive into the deep structural challenges holding back Australia’s productivity.

From housing affordability and intergenerational wealth divides to immigration policy, infrastructure planning, superannuation, and government inefficiency, our panel unpacks why Australians feel like they’re going backwards despite headline GDP growth.

Key themes covered:

Why per-capita GDP is declining while costs soar

The intergenerational wealth gap and broken housing market

Immigration’s role in Australia’s “population pyramid”

The failure of the Productivity Roundtable and lack of national planning

Superannuation, taxation, and the misallocation of $4 trillion in savings

Infrastructure, red tape, and why major projects cost 8x more here than overseas

Health, aged care, NDIS waste, and the push to nationalise services

Technology, AI, and whether productivity gains will ever arrive

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Timestamps

0:00 – Welcome & purpose of the roundtable
0:55 – Why Australians feel poorer despite GDP growth
2:20 – John Abernethy: “Australia has no plan”
4:00 – The intergenerational wealth divide
5:12 – Immigration, demographics & housing pressures
7:06 – What happens if migration is cut?
9:23 – Superannuation: too much wealth locked up
12:00 – Family breakdown, childcare & work productivity
16:00 – NDIS, aged care, and wasted spending
18:10 – Why our political system blocks reform
23:00 – Infrastructure failures & cost blowouts
27:30 – Health care, nationalisation & reform
31:30 – Leadership void: where is Australia’s plan?
36:00 – Charities, red tape, and government inefficiency
42:00 – Technology, AI & the future of productivity
50:00 – Are we “anti-fragile”? Can Australia fix itself?
53:30 – Immigration, crime & integration challenges

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