A month after the election, Anthony Albanese gave a speech to the National Press Club. Eight days later, Jim Chalmers did the same. The two speeches were monologues, of course – but seemed to be in dialogue with each other. Albanese announced a roundtable at which the government would try to build support for economic reform, “to drive growth, boost productivity, strengthen the budget and secure the resilience of our economy”. Chalmers, speaking of that same roundtable, said – almost as though replying directly to the prime minister – “No sensible progress can be made on productivity, resilience or budget sustainability without proper consideration of more tax reform.”

Illustration by Joe BenkeCredit: Joe Benke

So if we don’t see any tax reform coming directly out of this roundtable – which finally arrives this week – will the rest of us be justified in saying “no sensible progress” has been made?

The short answer is no – but with some important caveats.

Why shouldn’t the government be ridiculed if it fails to do much on tax this week? The answer lies in timing. Labor has been careful to keep its goals for the roundtable pretty broad. It has talked about building consensus and shaping long-term directions; it wants the event to “lead to” concrete actions, with ideas generated for the next three budgets.

All this can sound a bit of a squib – but there are good political reasons to proceed cautiously. It’s highly unlikely most voters are ready for a series of tax announcements. Remember that Labor, early in its first term, foreshadowed tough........

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