A former Miss Australia and ex-politician who physically and verbally abused her husband over eight years has been given a seven-month suspended jail term. 

Kathryn Isobel Hay,`49, also controlled and intimidated then-partner Troy Richardson, and verbally and physically abused the couple’s two children.

In 1999, Hay was crowned Miss Tasmania and Miss Australia, the first Aboriginal woman to win the award, and served in the island state’s parliament as a Labor MP from 2002-06.

She was found guilty in March of a single charge of emotional abuse or intimidation spanning 2014 to 2022. 

It was alleged Hay punched Mr Richardson in the face, threw cereal at him and frequently abused him online and in person.

Mr Richardson gave evidence that Hay hit him in the face with a shoe several times while he was driving because he “just didn’t do something right”. 

He said there were threats of violence at least weekly and Hay would give him lists of things that needed to be done. 

“If it wasn’t done properly I’d get abuse. If it was done, she’d give me another list.”

In a statement read to court on his behalf on Friday, Mr Richardson said he now suffers post-traumatic stress disorder and severe anxiety, and their children struggle with distress.

Mr Richardson said he feared no one would believe him about the abuse, which left him “completely isolated”.

Magistrate Simon Brown found the majority of the particulars against Hay, who now lives in Sydney, had been proven.

A psychologist’s report found Hay had shown a complete lack of insight into her offending, prosecutor Garth Stevens told Launceston Magistrates Court. 

However, Hay’s lawyer Marcia Edwards disputed that interpretation, saying her client accepted the court’s findings and it was more “a disbelief than a denial”. 

Hay was grappling with thoughts of “did I do this?’, Ms Edwards said. 

“There was a fight between a husband and a wife, it was the end of a toxic marriage … and the court has taken a view of this,” she said.

Hay, who was at times in tears during proceedings, was given a seven-year jail term, suspended for two-and-a-half years on the condition she doesn’t commit an imprisonable crime. 

Mr Brown said Hay’s conduct was a serious example of family violence and Mr Richardson’s time in the marriage would have been extraordinarily difficult. 

Hay, who the court was told suffers from mental health issues, did not have “genuine insight into the extent of her wrongdoing”, Mr Brown said. 

However, he noted Hay’s childhood was blighted by family violence and she was suffering genuine distress after her offending. 

She had lost contact with her children, was no longer able to get meaningful work and had been the subject of enormous media attention. 

“Her reputation is obviously in tatters,” Mr Brown said. 

Hay is living at a women’s shelter and was working on herself through free courses because she had no money, Ms Edwards said. 

“If she were to enter another relationship, these courses are fairly and squarely teaching you how to behave in an adult world,” she said. 

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Very few people stop Wentworth MP Allegra Spender on the streets of Bondi to talk about tax reform and she wants that to change.

That’s why among the usual cast of economic boffins, politicians and business representatives at the teal independent’s tax roundtable in Parliament House on Friday, content creators were packaging up the discussion to cut through to a different audience.

While young people feel the impacts of the tax system on housing unaffordability and stagnant real wages, getting them to care about changing it – and ensuring policymakers know that support is there – is another matter.

Former Treasury secretary Ken Henry, who wrote the book on tax reform during the Rudd and Gillard governments, said the current system was broken.

The burden is increasingly shifting onto the shoulders of young people, who are also contending with an increasingly unaffordable housing market.

“Tax policy tragics know that tax reform is necessary, but the thing is that most people in the community do not,” he told the roundtable. 

“I reckon the best thing that we can do as a group is to help make the case, to help in the construction of a compelling narrative, something that motivates action.”

Ms Spender agrees.

“You have to convince people why it’s important before you can convince them what the solution is,” Ms Spender told AAP.

“People don’t come up to me in the street to talk about a particular aspect of tax.

“But they talk to me about the fact that they’re worried about their kids, whether they can get a home. They’re worried about productivity, and whether our businesses can get access to capital. 

“Those are the things that people worry about. They don’t necessarily see the link back to tax.”

Ms Spender has been taking to Instagram to get the message out.

Also there to spread the message were Konrad Benjamin, whose Punter’s Politics videos rack up millions of views on social media, and Natasha Etschmann, a personal finance podcaster with more than 300,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok.

They have a direct line to a growing cohort of younger Australians who increasingly feel the system is stacked against them.

Getting buy-in from regular punters who felt left out was an important step if things were to change politically, Mr Benjamin said.

The solutions raised around the table were largely the same ones tax reform advocates have been calling for for more than a decade – taxing carbon and resources more effectively, reducing reliance on personal income tax, and boosting incentives for investment.

“They know the solutions,” Mr Benjamin said.

“How do you get it through? And how do you communicate it? And that’s, I suppose, where we are sitting. 

“We’re trying to shape the political discourse around something like tax, because it’s been dominated by the Murdoch channels. 

“But who’s bearing the burden? Our generation, wage slaves, us.”

Australians are distressed by the images of children starving as a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza worsens, Foreign Minister Penny Wong says.

The comments followed a strongly-worded statement from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who said the situation in Gaza, where vision of emaciated children has become the norm as Israel denies aid to civilians, had “gone beyond the world’s worst fears”.

The escalation in rhetoric has added intrigue as to whether Australia will follow France’s lead in recognising Palestine.

Asked about Australia’s intentions for a UN General Assembly in September, Senator Wong would not rule out support for statehood.

“We all are distressed by the ongoing violence, the deaths of so many innocent civilians, the images of children starving, the humanitarian catastrophe that is worsening before our eyes, and we all want it to stop,” she told reporters in Sydney on Friday.

The prime minister earlier urged Israel to comply with its obligations under international law.

“Israel’s denial of aid and the killing of civilians, including children, seeking access to water and food cannot be defended or ignored,” he said.

“Every innocent life matters. Every Israeli. Every Palestinian.”

Mr Albanese stopped short of saying Australia would immediately join France in recognising Palestinian statehood after the European nation became the largest Western power to signal it would make the announcement.

Mr Albanese instead said recognising the “legitimate aspirations of Palestinian people for a state of their own” was a bipartisan position.

“Australia is committed to a future where both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples can live in peace and safety, within internationally recognised borders,” he said.

“Until that day, every effort must be made here and now to safeguard innocent life and end the suffering and starvation of the people of Gaza.”

Ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, a designated terrorist organisation, have collapsed after Israel and the US withdrew from talks.

With aid being throttled at the border and all entry points to Gaza controlled by Israel, former USAID official Jeremy Konyndyk said Australia and the other nations must do more as the situation in Gaza was “purely a political famine”.

“Nothing about this is natural or organic – it’s 100 per cent man-made,” the Refugees International president told ABC Radio.

“We are at – if not past – a tipping point.”

The Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which began operations in May, has been accused of obstructing operations by the United Nations and other aid groups, and putting starving Palestinians in danger.

According to Mr Konyndyk, its aid packages were small and insufficient and the foundation’s facilities were located far from population centres.

“The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a farce,” he said.

Israel, which began letting in only a trickle of supplies to Gaza in recent months, has previously blamed Hamas for disrupting food distribution and accused it of using stolen aid to fund its war effort.

While the coalition said it had “strong concerns” about the worsening humanitarian situation, opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said it was disappointing Mr Albanese’s statement did not place any blame on Hamas.

“Any moral outrage about the situation in Gaza should be directed at Hamas,” she said.

Israel has enforced a complete embargo on humanitarian aid and medical supplies for almost three months after a ceasefire deal broke down earlier in 2025.

In recent months, more than 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid, many of them shot by the Israeli military, UN sources have found.

Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in Gaza.

Its military campaign was launched after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1200 people and taking 251 hostages.

Mr Albanese also condemned the “terror and brutality” of Hamas and repeated calls for the release of the remaining hostages.

Australia has warned that US trade wars risk a return to the “law of the jungle” as President Donald Trump claims a win over dropped restrictions on American beef.

Mr Trump and his trade representative Jamieson Greer have put Australia ditching biosecurity blocks on imported beef down to pressure from the White House.

The president has been pushing for concessions from a raft of countries after unveiling sweeping tariffs on imports, including a baseline 10 per cent rate for Australian goods.

But Trade Minister Don Farrell denied any quid pro quo, saying the removal of beef restrictions came at the end of a decade-long, independent review process and biosecurity hadn’t been sacrificed.

Senator Farrell used a major trade policy speech to deliver some of the strongest language yet to criticise the president’s upheaval of international trade with his tariffs.

“The rules of the road are being challenged – one of the chief designers of the global trading system, the United States, is now questioning the benefits of open, rules-based trade,” he told the Lowy Institute on Friday.

“What we risk seeing is a shift from a system based on shared prosperity and interdependence to one based solely on power and size.”

Slowed growth from major trading partners and the ripple effect it would have on the global economy “will be felt for generations”, the trade minister warned.

“We cannot risk a return to the law of the jungle,” he said.

Senator Farrell said he remained optimistic the US would eventually drop the levies as they pushed up inflation and unemployment.

Demand for Australian imports had remained steady, he said, pointing to steel as an example despite the product being subject to a 25 per cent levy.

“What President Trump is saying to us and the rest of the world is we want to buy less of your products,” he said.

“Now, strangely enough, that actually hasn’t happened so far with most Australian products.”

But the trade minister also issued a veiled warning to Washington, saying if they continued to keep trade barriers then Australian businesses would simply turn elsewhere.

The nation could increase its exports to markets like Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore, Senator Farrell said.

“Singapore loves doing business with us, so there are so many opportunities in our region that if America says, ‘OK, well we’re going to take less of your product’, we can find other markets much closer to home.”

Health Minister Mark Butler said the dropped beef restrictions came after the US increased its traceability standards.

A blanket ban on US beef imports was introduced after a 2003 mad cow disease outbreak.

It was lifted in 2019, but there were restrictions on products derived from Canada- or Mexico-raised cattle.

Only small quantities have been imported to Australia since the wholesale ban was lifted.

Craig Huf, a cattle producer from Upper Barringbar on the NSW north coast, said large volumes of imported beef were not expected to reach the Australian market because of record-low US herd numbers.

Australian Farm Institute executive director Katie McRobert agreed, saying it was unlikely there would be a rush to import American beef as “we already produce far more beef in Australia than we can possibly eat”.

But the association backed industry calls for an independent review of the government’s decision to reassure producers about biosecurity risks.

Experts have warned that Australia’s move to lift restrictions on US beef might not be enough to shift the dial on tariff negotiations.

The Philippines and Japan recently struck agreements with the US to lower their tariff rates, but both nations’ goods are still taxed above the 10 per cent baseline.

Australia and the UK are pledging a half-century alliance, shifting the two nations closer together while the US wavers in its support for a crucial nuclear submarine program.

A 50-year treaty to underpin the three-nation security pact will be signed after Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles meet their counterparts for talks in Sydney.

The AUKUS security partnership involves the US, UK and Australia, but the fresh treaty is only between London and Canberra.

In opening remarks with UK leaders, Mr Marles said the two nations’ relationship might be Australia’s most important partnership.

“We are living at a time (when) the world is volatile, there is a great power contest,” he said on Friday.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy also spoke of the “challenging” global circumstances, including the war in Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East.

“We rely on each other in so many ways and obviously, combined, we are part of a system that gives us tremendous intelligence capability and military capability,” he said.

While negotiations over the defence agreement were flagged before US President Donald Trump took power, the document’s inking shows the UK and Australia are strengthening ties in the face of American tariffs and the Pentagon’s yet-to-be-completed AUKUS review.

The bilateral treaty will facilitate greater economic co-operation between the two nations by improving both countries’ industrial capacity.

As part of the existing defence agreement, Australia will pay $5 billion to support British industry to design and produce nuclear reactors to power the future AUKUS-class submarines.

Under the $368 billion AUKUS submarine program, Australia is set to be sold least three Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines from the US in the early 2030s.

The new AUKUS-class nuclear submarines will be built in Adelaide and delivered in the 2040s.

But the planned sale of US-built boats has been up in the air since the Trump administration launched a review of the deal to examine whether it aligns with his “America first” agenda.

Defence analysts believe a likely outcome of the US review will be a request for more money from Australia to support its submarine industrial base.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Alex Bristow said holding ministerial meetings every six months, rather than the traditional annual timeline, highlighted strengthened ties between the two nations.

“The tempo of it increasing, I think, is a signal that Britain is moving into an elite category,” he told AAP.

The UK’s Carrier Strike Group, led by the Royal Navy flagship HMS Prince of Wales, arrived in Darwin on Wednesday during Talisman Sabre multi-nation military exercises hosted by Australia.

It’s the first UK carrier strike group to visit Australia since 1997.

The international task group includes five core ships, 24 jets and 17 helicopters, centred on the flagship aircraft carrier.

Mr Marles and Senator Wong will on Sunday join their UK counterparts in Darwin to observe the group in action.

UK High Commissioner Sarah MacIntosh said the strike group’s arrival was a demonstration of commitment to the region and the strong relationship with Canberra.

“This is an anchor relationship in a contested world,” she said.

The prime minister has decried Israel’s denial of aid to starving civilians but stopped short of following France’s lead in recognising a Palestinian state.

In a strongly worded statement, Anthony Albanese said the situation in Gaza, where vision of emaciated children has become the norm, had “gone beyond the world’s worst fears”.

“Israel’s denial of aid and the killing of civilians, including children, seeking access to water and food cannot be defended or ignored,” he said on Friday.

“Every innocent life matters. Every Israeli. Every Palestinian.”

But the Australian government will not immediately join France in recognising Palestinian statehood after the European nation became the largest Western power to signal it would make the announcement.

Mr Albanese instead said recognising the “legitimate aspirations of Palestinian people for a state of their own” was a bipartisan position.

“Australia is committed to a future where both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples can live in peace and safety, within internationally-recognised borders,” he said.

“Until that day, every effort must be made here and now to safeguard innocent life and end the suffering and starvation of the people of Gaza.”

Ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, a designated terrorist organisation, have collapsed after the former nation and the US withdrew from talks.

Mr Albanese also urged Israel to comply with its obligations under international law.

With aid being throttled at the border and all entry points to Gaza controlled by Israel, former USAID official Jeremy Konyndyk said Australia and the other nations must do more as the situation in Gaza was “purely a political famine”.

“Nothing about this is natural or organic – it’s 100 per cent man-made,” the Refugees International president told ABC Radio.

“We are at – if not past – a tipping point.

“All coping mechanisms that the population use have been exhausted, people are beginning to just drop dead of hunger.”

The Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which began operations in May, has been accused of obstructing operations by the United Nations and other aid groups, and putting starving Palestinians in danger.

According to Mr Konyndyk, its aid packages were small and insufficient and the foundation’s facilities were located far from population centres.

“By design, the people seeking aid from these facilities have to go through areas that are extraordinarily dangerous, that bring them into direct proximity to (Israeli army) forces who have fired on them almost every single day that the GHF has been in operation,” he said.

“The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a farce.”

Israel, which began letting in only a trickle of supplies to Gaza in recent months, has previously blamed Hamas for disrupting food distribution and accused it of using stolen aid to fund its war effort.

While the coalition said it had “strong concerns” about the worsening humanitarian situation, opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said it was disappointing the prime minister’s statement did not place any blame on Hamas.

“Any moral outrage about the situation in Gaza should be directed at Hamas,” she said.

Israel has enforced a complete embargo on humanitarian aid and medical supplies for almost three months after a ceasefire deal broke down earlier in 2025.

In recent months, more than 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid, many of whom were shot by the Israeli military, UN sources have found.

Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in Gaza.

Its military campaign was launched after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1200 people and taking 251 hostages.

The prime minister also condemned the “terror and brutality” of Hamas and repeated calls for the release of the remaining hostages.

Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann has suffered a legal defeat in the first of multiple court battles aimed at halting a rape trial against him.

Lehrmann’s Sydney-based solicitor Zali Burrows on Friday took aim at Queensland Police after withdrawing a bid to prove officers had illegally recorded two conversations between Lehrmann and his previous legal team.

Ms Burrows had also been seeking a court injunction to prevent Queensland Police from recording any future conversations with any of Lehrmann’s legal representatives.

Lehrmann, 30, appeared by phone on Friday when the matter was heard at Toowoomba District Court.

Judge Benedict Power dismissed the application after the claims were withdrawn by Ms Burrows, who conceded her entire case would depend on proving officers had broken the law in Queensland.

Outside court, Ms Burrows told reporters she would never again speak to a Queensland Police officer on the phone.

“All I can say is that it’s another world in the state of Queensland,” she said.

Ms Burrows’ application was part of a wider bid to seek a permanent stay on proceedings which, if granted, would halt a pending trial against Lehrmann on two counts of rape.

Lehrmann, who is on bail, is accused of raping a woman twice during the morning of October 10, 2021 after they met at a strip club the previous night in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane.

The former ministerial staffer to Liberal senator Linda Reynolds was charged in January 2023 and is yet to formally enter a plea.

But his former solicitor had previously told a magistrate he intended to contest the charges.

Ms Burrows on Friday agreed with Judge Power’s contention that the officers might have followed proper procedure for keeping accurate notes during the early stages of an investigation.

“You need to establish as a matter of law that what (the investigating detective) did was unlawful,” Judge Power said.

Ms Burrows said police would have an “unfair tactical advantage” if they had a recording of any conversation where a lawyer accidentally disclosed legally confidential material.

Judge Power said that would not be the fault of police and any of Lehrmann’s solicitors could make a separate claim if there was confidential material.

Crown prosecutor Caroline Marco was not required to argue in court against Ms Burrows except to agree with Judge Power’s proposed order to dismiss.

She told Judge Power the application to halt the trial could only be heard once all other applications were dealt with.

Judge Power told the lawyers they needed to be in a position by July 31 to nominate a date for when the trial might begin.

Ms Burrows told Judge Power that while Lehrmann’s previous solicitor had indicated he would make an application for a judge-only trial, her client no longer had a position on whether any trial should be heard by a jury.

The matter will return to court for an August 28 hearing concerning Ms Burrows’ efforts to subpoena the Commissioner of Queensland Police for access to all materials involved in the case.

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Donald Trump is claiming a win over dropped biosecurity restrictions on US beef despite Australian leaders saying the move has nothing to do with ongoing trade negotiations.

The US president has been pushing for concessions from a raft of countries after unveiling sweeping tariffs on imports, including a baseline 10 per cent rate for Australian goods.

Washington officials have complained about non-tariff trade barriers for US wares being shipped to Australia, including long-standing restrictions on beef that have now been dropped.

Mr Trump said the US would “sell so much to Australia”, putting other countries that banned its beef imports on notice.

“After many years Australia has agreed to accept American beef!” he posted on his Truth Social platform.

“All of our nation’s ranchers, who are some of the hardest working and most wonderful people, are smiling today, which means I am smiling too.”

US trade representative Jamieson Greer said the president took “decisive action to confront unfair trading practices”.

“Australia’s decision to unlock market access for US beef is a direct result of his leadership,” he said.

The Australian government maintains the decision was unrelated to any trade negotiations and it followed a decade-long biosecurity review relating to US beef after a 2003 mad cow disease outbreak.

“It’s nothing in the timing, it reflects a change in American practice over the last six or nine months that’s been assessed independently by our officials,” Health Minister Mark Butler told Seven’s Sunrise on Friday.

“As I understand it, the Americans introduced new traceability arrangements.”

A blanket ban on US beef imports was lifted in 2019, but there were restrictions on products derived from Canada- or Mexico-raised cattle.

Only small quantities have been imported to Australia since the wholesale ban was lifted.

Craig Huf, a cattle producer from Upper Barringbar on the NSW north coast, said large volumes of imported beef were not expected to reach the Australian market because of record-low US herd numbers.

“The US is already importing bucketloads of beef from Australia, so for it to come back the other way is unlikely,” Mr Huf, the chair of the local NSW Farmers Association branch, told AAP on Friday.

“So, in the short term, we probably don’t expect it to impact us.”

But the association backed industry calls for an independent review of the government’s decision to reassure producers about biosecurity risks.

“Australia has got some of the best biosecurity protocols in the world and the produce here is often bought because of its clean, green image,” Mr Huf said.

“So to jeopardise that is pretty risky, but here’s hoping the science is right and that we’re not the sacrificial lambs of government policies.”

Australian Farm Institute executive director Katie McRobert said the cattle industry had been “extremely nervous” about biosecurity traceability from different parts of North and South America.

“We wouldn’t expect a significant impact on Australian producers from the potential to import American beef … because we already produce far more beef in Australia than we can possibly eat,” she said.

Experts have warned that Australia’s move to lift restrictions on US beef might not be enough to shift the dial on tariff negotiations.

The Philippines and Japan recently struck agreements with the US to lower their tariff rates, but both nations’ goods are still taxed above the 10 per cent baseline.

AMP chief economist Shane Oliver said Australia might be lucky to hang on to its baseline rate in the context of other deals.

Former ambassador to the US Arthur Sinodinos said while biosecurity investigations could take a while to finalise, it was a sensible outcome.

But he urged Australia to put together a comprehensive package to improve bargaining power in the attempt to strike a trade deal.

Asian shares have eased, with Japanese markets retreating from a record peak, as investors locked in profits ahead of a crucial week that includes US President Donald Trump’s tariff deadline and a host of central bank meetings.

The dollar gained against the yen after bouncing off a two-week low on Thursday, helped by some firm US economic data, while Japan’s currency was weighed down by political uncertainty amid media reports Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will step down.

Benchmark Japanese government bond yields hovered just below the highest since 2008.

Japan’s broad Topix index, which had jumped more than 5 per cent over the previous two sessions to reach an all-time high, pulled back 0.7 per cent. The Nikkei slipped 0.5 per cent from Thursday’s one-year high.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.5 per cent and mainland Chinese blue chips declined 0.2 per cent. Australia’s equity benchmark declined 0.5 per cent.

At the same time, US S&P 500 futures added 0.2 per cent, after the cash index edged up slightly to a new record closing high overnight, buoyed by robust earnings from Google parent Alphabet. The tech-heavy Nasdaq also marked a record high.

MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe edged down 0.1 per cent, but remained just below an all-time peak from Thursday. The index is on course for a 1.3 per cent weekly advance, buoyed in large part by optimism for US trade deals with the European Union and China, following an agreement with Japan this week.

Next week, in the US alone, investors need to contend with Trump’s August 1 deadline for trade deals, a Federal Reserve policy meeting, the closely watched monthly payrolls report, and earnings from the likes of Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft.

The Bank of Japan has its own policy announcement on Thursday, and Prime Minister Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party holds a meeting the same day.

That’s after the European Central Bank held rates steady on Thursday, pausing its easing campaign as it waits to assess any impact from US tariffs.

The euro ended the session down 0.2 per cent against a buoyant dollar, and was little changed on Friday at $1.1743.

The US currency advanced 0.3 per cent to 147.37 yen, adding to Thursday’s 0.4 per cent gain.

Trump kept the pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell to cut rates after a rare presidential visit to the central bank on Thursday, although he said he did not intend to fire Powell, as he has frequently suggested he would.

US 10-year Treasury yields edged down to 4.39 per cent on Friday, effectively erasing an advance on Thursday.

Equivalent Japanese government bond yields eased 0.5 basis point to 1.595 per cent, just off this week’s high of 1.6 per cent, a level last seen in October 2008.

JGB yields have been rising on concerns the political scale is tilting more towards fiscal stimulus, after big gains for opposition parties backing consumption tax cuts in Sunday’s upper house election. Pressure is building on the more fiscally hawkish Ishiba to quit after his coalition lost its majority in the vote, after doing the same in lower house elections last October.

Gold was flat at around $3,368 per ounce, keeping it on course for a 0.5 per cent rise this week.

Brent crude futures gained 0.3 per cent to $69.35 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures added 0.2 per cent to $66.18 per barrel.

Workers could eventually be $14,000 a year better off if an upcoming roundtable is successful, Australia’s productivity tsar says, as competing interests draw battle lines over the summit’s priorities.

Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood says Australia should adopt a “growth mindset” to prioritise economic outcomes and boost living standards.

That includes changing corporate taxes to promote investment, simplifying regulations, speeding up housing and energy approvals, and ensuring artificial intelligence adoption isn’t undermined by unnecessary regulation.

The suggestions were included in a sneak peek of the commission’s priority reforms as it prepares to release a series of reports detailing solutions to Australia’s productivity challenge.

“Australia should be a place where children born today can expect to live better and more prosperous lives than the generations who have come before them,’ Ms Wood said.

“Productivity growth is essential to fulfilling that promise.”

But productivity growth has plummeted in recent years.

How much Australia produces with the same number of workers has grown by just under 0.4 per cent a year since 2015, compared to the 60-year average of 1.6 per cent. 

The average adult full-time worker would be $14,000 a year better off by 2035 if the growth rate returned to the historic average.

In a new report, the commission laid blame for the slowdown on governments ignoring or minimising economic growth when making policy choices.

Policymakers have made it harder than it should be to start a business or build infrastructure such as housing or renewable energy because they have failed to weigh trade-offs effectively, been too risk-averse or “overly influenced by vocal stakeholder groups”.

Governments must balance competing objectives and make choices that improve Australians’ overall wellbeing, even if those decisions might negatively affect other goals.

“Bringing a growth mindset to policy decisions means elevating economic growth and its benefits,” Ms Wood said.

“That doesn’t mean policymakers should ignore other objectives, but it does mean being clear-eyed about the trade-offs.”

The paper pre-empts an economic roundtable convened by Treasurer Jim Chalmers, which will take place over three days in August.

He said the report made clear the productivity problem had been around for decades and that almost every comparable country has had the same challenge.

In its submission to the roundtable, a joint group of industry associations – including the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry – outlined four priority areas for reform.

These include reforming research and development funding models to boost innovation, cutting the regulatory burden by 25 per cent by 2030, co-ordinating and unifying planning processes to speed up project approvals, and committing to comprehensive tax reform.

“We need to cut unhelpful red tape, streamline planning, fix the tax system and improve incentives for investment,” Business Council chief executive Bran Black said.

“These policies can deliver benefits for economic activity across the whole country and importantly, ensure future generations aren’t worse off.”

But Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus said it was poor management that was dragging down productivity, with a survey conducted for the peak union body showing almost two in five employees suffered work burnout.

“This new survey highlights the symptoms of one of the most significant causes of slow productivity growth in Australia – poor management performance,” she said.

“Despite this issue being uncovered in many significant international and local studies, our Productivity Commission largely ignores it.”

Dr Chalmers said it was a good thing that a range of views was being expressed ahead of the roundtable, so that “we can tease out our differences and seek common ground”.

“It’s obvious that when it comes to decisions taken by managers and by boards and by others, obviously that has implications for productivity,” he said. 

“It would be unusual in the extreme if the ACTU representing Australian workers weren’t able to make that view public.”