Fiscal discipline and the 2008–9 federal budget
Greig Gailey (President, Business Council of Australia): ‘The first budget is going to be absolutely critical because lots of promises [were made] during the election and the economy may be not looking quite as rosy. And I would hope that the government is pragmatic enough to modify it policy as and when that becomes necessary and not simply engage in a situation of implementing something that may no longer be appropriate.’

Overhauling federal–state relations
Angus James (Chief Executive Officer, ABN AMRO Australia Pty Limited): ‘It would wash across all the issues, such as education, health, training. Everything we touch and do really has an element of federal–state relationships.’

More effective and efficient infrastructure development
Rod Pearse (CEO and Managing Director, Boral Limited): ‘It’s a little early for the new government, but clearly Treasury would be very concerned … around nation building infrastructure which hasn’t really been properly prioritised with transparency and good cost benefit. So we’re looking for a better process to try and work out what level of infrastructure spend needs to go where. But what we don’t want is too politicised a process.’

Tax reform
Greig Gailey: ‘A lot of what is being done in taxation in Australia is ad hoc, and nobody stands back and looks at the totality of the tax and says this is the way it should go. And when you look at the number of taxes there are, particularly those that fall on business, there is a whole lot of taxes out there that appear, to us at least, not even to be worth collecting. That is, it costs the state governments as much to collect them as they actually get.’

Streamlining business regulation
Robert Milliner (Chief Executive Partner, Mallesons Stephen Jaques): ‘I think one of the things we are looking for is not more fragmentation … The Banks inquiry talks about a much better business evaluation of the merits of each form of new regulation, a true cost–benefit of it, and I think there had been an acceptance that that should be done.’