In part - although only in part - the outcome depends on us, on the people in this room, and the enterprises and institutions we represent. It depends on how effectively and imaginatively we all do our individual jobs and on whether we find constructive ways to work together.
There is still very substantial spare capacity in the Australian economy. The unemployment rate is higher today than it has been for almost 2 decades and many people can’t get the hours of work they want. And in terms of output, we remain well behind where we thought we would be when I spoke here in February last year (Graph 4).