Australia can look to a future of “endless possibilities” against a backdrop of a world growing more dangerous and divided.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers will on Monday deliver a positive assessment of the nation’s prospects while warning of unprecedented challenges to coincide with the release of the nation’s latest Intergenerational Report.
The seventh edition of the Treasury assessment, projects the impact of government policies 40 years into the future, highlighting the challenges of an ageing population, dramatic technology shifts and increasing global volatility.
But each challenge would also pose opportunities for Australia, according to excerpts of a speech to be delivered by Dr Chalmers.
“Living standards will be higher and people will retire with much more super, meaning much more security,” the treasurer will say, while noting the increasingly fragmented nature of the world.
“No previous (report) has contended with global challenges this great, with politics this fraught or a future less certain.
“The global and generational risks are serious, but Australia’s opportunities are endless.”
The choice to be posed by Dr Chalmers is simple: “Keep up and succeed or lag and languish.”
That meant ensuring the accelerating pace of change – driven by rapid advancements in technology – was accompanied by an “accelerating pace of opportunity”.
Overall, the report predicted an Australia in the mid-2060s in which people would have longer, healthier lives but with fewer children, living in a nation “powered by cleaner energy, completely transformed by technology”.
The average life expectancy for girls born in 2065/66 was predicted to be almost 90, while for men it was forecast to be 86, according to details from the report made public ahead of time.
Both estimates were up about four years on current life expectancies.
Future government debt is expected to be slashed by half a trillion dollars compared to forecasts in the 2023 report, but much of the economic progress relies on technologies such as artificial intelligence.
“Our economy will be more than twice its current size and the budget will be strained, but still stronger than in the last update,” Dr Chalmers will say.
Previous Treasury advice suggested AI could provide significant productivity gains across the public and private sectors if the nation kept pace with the global shift towards the technology.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor on Sunday said Labor would “cook the books” and rely on rosy productivity assumptions to deliver better-than-expected budget forecasts.
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