Source: ABS  Looking ahead With that assessment of the past, let me turn then, very tentatively, to the future. I have already noted that Australia's trend growth rate has probably slowed a little. The demographic effects that are working to slow it are likely to continue over the coming decades.
Unease with the economy reflects a number of longer-term challenges, challenges that will require a different set of policy tools than those used to address nearer-term cyclical shortfalls in growth. Prominent among these challenges are low equilibrium interest rates and sluggish productivity growth in the United States and abroad. I will first touch on low interest rates before turning to productivity.