Does DOGE have any relevance to South Australia?
On 2 April the Chairman of the SA Productivity Commission, Mr Adrian Tembel, gave the keynote at the Australian Institute for Company Directors’ SA Forum. His speech highlighted the scale of the challenge South Australian economic policy makers had faced in dealing with the sharp decline in the manufacturing sector after trade barriers were removed.
Mr Tembel noted that over the thirty years leading up to Covid there were a range of policy initiatives which aimed to help the South Australian economy restructure, but the state still fell further behind in economic output, population, and exports.
He went on to say that although the post-COVID growth had given South Australia much needed stability in employment, with the unemployment rate now under 4%, there is no evidence yet of the type of structural change needed to deliver sustainable high growth in incomes for South Australians.
Mr Tembel proposed a new philosophy for South Australian economic policy, with a dual focus of lifting skills and innovation, and reforming the public sector to deliver the best public services for a reasonable cost. Delivering great public services in a fiscally responsible way will help both with growing and attracting the talent we need to build a bright economic future.
In this sense, he concluded that DOGE may have some relevance to South Australia. Not in its methodology or philosophy which should be categorically ruled out. But it is appropriate for the Government to look to the public sector to be just as innovative, reformist and open to change as we expect our private sector to be, as this can deliver a clear economic as well as social dividend.