 Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the 2024 Wilson Dialogue. I'm Martin Parkinson, chair of the Sir Roland Wilson Foundation. We're joined tonight by a Nambri Nunawal custodian, Paul Geroa-House, who will welcome us to country before we begin. Paul, as always, you honour us with your participation and thank you very much for being with us. Over to you. Mandangu, Wurrungu Wuri, thank you, Martin, and Yare Marang, Burrum Marangbang, Maranya. Good afternoon, everyone. You and do Paul Geroa-House. My name is Paul Geroa-House. Naadu Maradu Maraibidin Gu, Guji Gango, Nambri, Canberra, Nudu Nudu Bango. I was born here, the centre of my ancestral country, the Alcambra Hospital. God bless it. My name is Matilda Williams-House, my respects to my mother and my respects to all matriarchs here today and this evening. Because of them we can, because of her we can. So, Baladu, Nambri, Canberra, Walgulu, Wuradri, Guibi, Nyiang, Nambri, Canberra, Walgulu, Walabalua, Nunawal, Wuradri, Man, I speak Walgulu, Wuradri language. So, Ilungalungu, Guibabangu, Wulgabu, Migaibu, Duranil Banga Maiin. Ladies and gentlemen, young men, young women distinguished guests, Nyaari, Njimali, Nyaambri, Canberra, Walgulu, Walabalua, Nunawal, Nagarago, Wuradri elders, past and present. Nyaari Njimaru Buu, Nudu Gango, Nurambanji Gu, Nini Yuridu, my respects to all people from all parts of the country, Nyaambri, Canberra, Walgulu, Walabalua, Nunawal, Maiin, Gaonbanya, Ninoga, Nurambangu, Dara. Nyaambri, Canberra, Walgulu, Walabalua, people, welcome you all to the country. Nadoo, Wuragibigia, Malabambu, Gubu, Wulgibangu, Buu, Goengulila, Gumbalina, Murawaro, Marambu. We listen to the old people, the ancestors, the elders, and they show us the good path, the right path, the straight path. Maramara, Murro, creating pathways, Murawaro on track. Goengulila, Bilinga, Yama, Malina, Wala, Malina, Wala people, they guide us, they nurture us, they protect us. Mambu, Wara, Naminyugu, Wara, Gubi, Nya, Wara, Dara, Wininga, Wala, Gubalugu, looking to see, listening to hear, and learning to understand. Nyaani, Injumali, Nura, Bangila, Balanin, Wala, Wengalinga, Bangbu, Yanengingu, Nyaani, Malwangya, Bilinga, Yama, Buu, Giri, Yan, Marambu, Bagrega, Yanengingu. We look after countries that are as healthy for our children, for all our people and we teach and we learn what is right for all our country. Mura, Wagi, Nya, Injumara, Mura, Mura, Widenbira, Nura, Bango. Living a respectful way of life, cares for country. Injumara, Widenbira, Marindu, Gubu, Gira, Gubu, Yan, Gubu, respect is taken responsibility for the now, the past, the present, and the future. Now welcome the countries always made in the spirit of peace and harmony and reconciliation for all people of modern Australia. Now my name always to establish an atmosphere of mutual respect. Through the acknowledgement of our ancestors and the recognition of our rights to declare our special place in the pre and post history of the Canberra region, the name of Canberra is derived from the name of our people and country, the Nyambri, Cambri, Canberra. Injumara, Injumara, Gidu, Injumara, a powerful word on country, many good things, means many good things, it's a way of life. It's a philosophy, it's a radri word that goes slow, be patient, be quiet, be gentle, take responsibility and uphold. Injumara, Bala, Bala, Bala, Wala, Mwangadabu, Muramagandabu, Bama, you good again, Bida. Respect is in the grinding stones and carved trees made long ago on country. Gubu, Guli, Wijingai, Ina, Wangara, Dargadag, Bapa, Yirinigu, respect is in how our matriarchs dig for yans in Mother Earth. We have cared for Mother Earth since the dawn of time and evidence of our occupation, our state, our sovereignty to be seen everywhere throughout the country, our signature is in the land, not just our DNA. Muragala, Dhal, Wala, Maya, Mayangala, hold fast to each other, empower the people. Walangunmala, Muramara, Gureti, brave, make change. Niriyawana, Murawara, Nawaan, Bida, get up, stand up and shower. Murambangmalang, Nwaegwaymalang, fabulous one of the be here to share. Naimura, Burumbar, Bida, Goaimbana, Nuna, Nura, Manga, this one from the country. In conclusion, I say, Yinjama, Wido, Muramara, Nya, Nya, Nya, Girema, Muranya, respect shapes us, lifts up the people. Muramara, Wininga, Giga, Laan, Namayin, respect creates people who care for each other. So, Goaimbana, Nuna, Nura, Manga, welcome the country. Mandangu, thank you very much. Thank you, Paul. And I think everybody listening to you can't help but be inspired by those words. I don't know how many times I've heard you deliver welcome to country and I always find it uplifting. So thank you again very much. And I also want to acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians and whose traditional lands and airways we meet. I pay my respects to Elders Past and Present. I want to extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people joining us this evening. It's incredibly important to have conversations like the one we're about to have tonight to engage openly, freely and respectfully with each other about the big issues that affect us all. Because sometimes it's easy to become defeatist when we look around this world we're in. We see increasingly divergent political landscapes. We see that reflected in a rise in populism, authoritarianism, return to nation-state conflict in Europe and the terrible events of the Middle East. We see it in the terms of a global community struggling to find common cause on the great challenges confronting humanity. Whether that be mass migration to escape conflict and poverty whether it's global health crises or whether it's climate change. So as the Sir Roland Wilson Foundation we are incredibly honoured to be able to bring you this discussion tonight. For those of you who don't know the Foundation Sir Roland Wilson Foundation is a partnership between the Australian Public Service, the Australian National University and Charles Darwin University. Our aim is to build the research and leadership capability of the Australian Public Service and embed connections between policymaking and academia through postgraduate scholarships. We do so in order to honour the legacy of Sir Roland Wilson, an eminent economist and one of the most influential public servants of his generation. Wilson played a central role in steering Australia's economy through some challenging times including World War II and our post-war recovery and development. And he did this in a number of roles including as the longest-serving secretary to the Australian Treasury. I'm certain Sir Roland was with us today he'd be most interested in tonight's discussion because many of the issues that are going to be canvassed were things that were important to him as he thought about public policy. This year's Wilson dialogue is going to explore the challenges of the cost of living crisis and the generational wealth gap and to seek opportunities to change. Now when we talk about the cost of living we're not talking about a dry set of numbers. What we're really talking about are the economic realities that shape our lives what we buy, what we eat and for so many of us where we can and can't live. We've all noticed the increasing pressure on our old budgets over the past few years but the impact of the crisis has hit some parts of our community much, much harder than others and we need to talk about that. The many Australians and their families the cost of living has become a barrier not only to their financial security but to their social mobility and a community where people can't move relatively freely between parts of our social hierarchy is one that is destined to face bigger problems but it's not just about rising prices or falling real wages or even about distribution of income even though they're all individually important and I'm sure will be canvas tonight. Ultimately it's also a reflection of our poor productivity performance over a long period of time. We've talked about deteriorating productivity performance for at very least since the first Treasury intergenerational report in 2002. We've talked about the consequences of that but it seemed I think for so many to be something that was often off into the future and very abstract but in actual fact what we're seeing today is the consequence of this and a number of other forces coming together. Now why have we not seen the consequences before? Well basically we've been lucky as a community we've seen we've had a period where other developments have been masking the inevitable erosion of our living standards because of the policies that we haven't actually pursued and when we move beyond the glib catchphrase of the bank of mum and dad generational wealth and its distribution is all about the access to resources, networks and opportunities that are going to profoundly influence and shape the lives of younger Australians. To address these challenges we need Australia's brightest most imaginative and determined policy makers to be on the case and I think we're very fortunate tonight to be able to have some best thinkers join us on an expert panel to discuss these issues. So let me introduce them to you. First up, Daniel Wood. Daniel commenced a five-year term as chair of the Productivity Commission in November last year. Prior to joining the Commission, Daniel was CEO of the Gratton Institute and she knows the issues that we're talking about because she was not only head of its budgets and governments program but she's had a long history in thinking about gender inequality, social mobility and other issues. During a time at Gratton, Daniel held roles as a member of the Australian Government's Women's Economic Equality Task Force the Parliamentary Budget Office Expert and Advisory Committee the Jobs and Schools Australia Consultive Forum and the Australian New Zealand School of Government Research Committee. So welcome, Daniel. We're also lucky to be joined by Dr Cassandra Goldie. Cassandra is well known to many of you and she's CEO of the Australian Council of Social Service and a junk professor at UNSW. Cassandra also brings a wealth of public policy expertise across economic, social environmental issues, civil society, social justice and human rights and importantly she's represented the interests of people who are disadvantaged and civil society more generally in major national and international processes as well as in grassroots communities. She has a PhD from UNSW and a master of Laws from University College London. She's a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, serves on the UNSW Law Advisory Committee and the Australian Climate Roundtable and is a member of the Federal Government's Economic Advisory Committee. Thank you for joining us, Cassandra. Caitlin Figueredo who's our third panelist is a proud Goan Australian and not only that she's the 2024 ACT Young Australian of the Year and she assures me she's having a ball in that role. From a young age Caitlin's been passionate about strengthening representative democracy. At 22 she was listed on the Forbes 30 under 30 list for co-founding the Girls Takeover Parliament Program, a bipartisan program that promotes representational democracy and increasing female political participation across the Asia Pacific region. Caitlin represents four and a half million young Australians nationally as a Director of the Australian Youth Affairs Coalition and through this work she promotes young people's voices, rights and issues throughout public policy and civic engagement. Again Caitlin, great to have you with us. And finally to our moderator for the evening Rick Morton. Rick is the author of three non-fiction books including the critically acclaimed bestseller A Hundred Years of Dirt which was long listed for the weekly book of the year, a Walkley book of the year 2018 and shortlisted for the National Biography Award 2019 and as a plug if you haven't read it go out and buy it and do yourself a favour and write, read. Rick's the senior reporter with the Saturday paper, a two-time Walkley Award winner for his coverage of the RoboDebt Royal Commission and he's currently working on the next book and he's going to be your facilitator for the evening. Thank you Rick. I'm sure all of us understand how lucky we are to have such an esteemed panel for this discussion. I'm going to invite them to offer their expertise and insights as the audience to actively participate in this important conversation not only tonight but beyond this session. So let's all approach this discussion with empathy, with curiosity and with a commitment to seeking common ground that's going to advance Australia's national interests and the interests of all Australians. On that note, Rick I'm going to hand over to you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for that introduction. It's got me excited to talk about some of these issues actually and that's not always true. I'm feeling a little bit like an underachiever I guess in the realm of the smart people we've got on this panel so I'm just happy to be here actually at this point. I feel like and you touched on this Martin but when we talk about cost of living it becomes easy to see it as a bit of a slogan these days of you know we're all worried about the cosy live you know the price of fruit and veggies up of course but what does it actually mean to regular people who are just trying to get through their jobs, through their family ups and downs and to live their lives essentially and I want to kind of start the session by defining the problem. What is it that we're actually talking about because it's not just about prices and then I want to move into some of those solutions that we might have on the table or at least some broader thinking about these ideas that sometimes gets missed in the wash and I want to encourage the audience to ask questions as we go because I'm trying to get out of the way and be the kind of moderator who actually gets to these questions that means I'm going to be a hard taskmaster as well and try and keep the conversation a little bit lively but if you're watching at home you'll notice that the chat function is disabled but we you can submit your questions using the Q&A function I think it's at the bottom of your screen I can't actually see it but I'll have those questions displayed for me later on in the program and we can actually get into the conversation there Caitlin I don't want to single you out particularly but and I don't want to make this to be a controversial claim but I think you're the youngest person on the panel and we're particularly interested in the intergenerational aspect of cost of living crisis. What does the problem look like to you at this point in time? Yeah so I think when you're looking at it from an intergenerational perspective when it comes to the cost of living you're talking about intergenerational fairness and intergenerational justice so essentially what that means is that members of the next generation so millennials Gen Z, Gen Alpha and those still to come have the same chances to fulfill their needs their dreams their hopes and aspirations as the current generations and those who have come previously but preferably when you're looking at our system that they will have a better chance to continue to build and grow their lives without having increased stresses on themselves and when it comes to the cost of living crisis we're not seeing intergenerational fairness or justice what we're seeing is a generation of young people who are actually scared a generation of young people who feel like there is no real hope that there is no real solutions that the government of the day is actually not listening to them because we have over 76% of young people don't believe they will ever be able to afford a house we're having increased chances of young people who are going from bed to bed trying to you know trying to find housing for affordability because they can't afford rent they're trying to decide whether or not they're going to have children because they can't actually afford to sustain their own lives and so because the living crisis is not just about yes it's about affording food yes it's about affording houses but it's also looking at mental health and well-being it's looking at the standard of your life and that's something that has really been impacted by the crisis. It's one of those interesting things because it's like what does it mean to have a hungry belly you know what does it mean for your study if you're a university student what does it mean if you're close to retirement and you're skipping food right and I know Cassandra you made the point in your own public life that there is the wealth gap within age brackets as well and so you know there are structural issues for young people and also increasingly those structural issues that have always been there for different age groups are becoming really pressing I think people as they approach retirement in particular. What's your kind of assessment of the situation we're in now for people who really are in any age bracket doing it the toughest? Thanks Rick I can just acknowledge I'm on the the Rurundri people of Kuala Nation paying my respects to Elders past and present and who also congratulate you on the recognition of your important role and how important it is to have voices such as yours in the debate because I think what's so confronting at this time is to recognise that Australia actually is capable of meeting everybody's needs we're a very wealthy country overall we're actually one of the wealthiest countries in the globe on measures and yet over the last couple of decades in particular we've allowed a number of structural changes to happen on our watch which have meant that when we go into crises bushfires pandemics wars where we do have a dramatic acceleration of costs in a particular part of the community we'll come back to you I'll bring Danielle in at this point as well Danielle your research has kind of been I think it's fair to say that you've been looking at housing which everyone wants to talk about and rents and I guess as the chair of the Productivity Commission when we talk about growing the pie and prosperity and I saw Chris Richardson out today as well talking about the same issue that they're linked that you can grow prosperity, grow productivity and bring people along with you but what does it actually look like to someone like me who's from regional Queensland I don't know a lot about economics help me understand why that is a good thing it sounds good on the tin well Rick I would say why don't you think about what you might have lived in at the time of Federation living standards so in terms of the amount of income per person was about one seventh of what it was today so we had a lot less stuff but on top of that we didn't have a social safety net our life expectancy was dramatically shorter we had a longer working week we didn't have indoor plumbing marbles that we now take for granted and ultimately it's actually productivity that kind of drives that improvement in living standards over time sorry I'll divert into economist's speak just very briefly productivity is really how much we can produce labour productivity how much we can produce for a given hour of work so as technology changes as our economy comes more dynamic as we learn more we can produce more over time and that's what has driven that extraordinary trajectory in living standards since Federation the pace of productivity growth over time will determine that future trajectory how much quicker our living standards can get how much we can support people in the sort of circumstances that both Katz and Caitlyn were talking about so that's why productivity is such an important part of this story and if I can get young people excited about productivity and why it matters then I feel like I've done my job here tonight you can use me as your test case because I'm excited by the rhetoric but I really do I don't quite get the leap and maybe this is just because of my undergraduate assessment of it but why do we have to do more stuff in order to get that better what's the nexus between doing more and having more is it just because that's the system we've got there isn't another one I don't want to get too philosophical but I'm curious because ultimately it is the production of goods and services that drives living standards and that is services that includes health services, education services that is what as a package drives our well-being so how well and how effectively we produce all that stuff matters for how much of it we can have and Cass just to bring you back in there I mean we talk about growing the pie but of course there is always a link with whatever the size of that bubble is the gap between the least and the most we have to I think Martin referred to that if that gets too big you've got a society that is on its knees that's right at this time now and despite the level of overall we've got over 3 million people who are living in poverty and that's one in eight adults and one in six children and that just doesn't happen by default it happens by policy decisions and we've still got now one of the lowest unemployment payments in all of the wealthy OECD countries youth allowance and job seeker woefully inadequate poverty payments the level of destitution that about one and a half million people who are at any point in time trying to live on that payment is unbearable to think about now people worry about somebody on the minimum wage and absolutely we've had a problem with the lack of growth in wages income really gives you access to at least the basics and yet job seeker is just 43% now of the minimum wage at just $54 per day it is you cannot get your head around what it must be like for a young person who's on even less on youth allowance to be able to live with any kind of dignity to feed yourself to keep the lights on to be able to socialize with friends to have any level of dignity and so that sense of hope just goes down the drain and this is shared across age groups but the other part of it we talk about is the wealth aspect of this and on our latest assessment of the wealth distribution it's extraordinary the top 20% of people have 90% 90 the time the income the wealth of people in the bottom 20% so 3.2 million on average for people in the top 5th and $36,000 on average for people in the bottom 20% of our distribution that's where we're at and so to Danielle's point about what this is it's a secure driver of either better living standards and high productivity which feeds into our sense of wellbeing our sense of balance our capacity to feel safe and secure is related to the extent to which we have at least a fair distribution being able to live with enough dignity to be able to feed themselves to have access to opportunities to be able to move if they see an opportunity and to be able to spend time in networks to actually go out and meet people and to build relationships that might open a door for you to get a job these are all very basics that are required for people to be able to have opportunity I think the fragility that comes for far too many people now who really don't have any wealth behind them or they don't have much and we know that getting access to housing has traditionally in Australia been a big part of that that also really drives this sense of there are people who have got the wealth behind them and for whom their wealth continues to grow and people who just cannot see how they will ever do that and we can change this as well what's driven housing crisis are actually the policies that fuel certain kinds of property investment at the expense of good access to housing for home ownership and a really decent rental market I'm going to bring Danielle in to respond to some of those in a little bit but I mean those the fact that there is a wealth gap in the first place of course is a problem now it's a bigger gap over time if you've got wealth money makes money something I didn't appreciate when I was younger because I'm like how do you make money with money you just earn it and then you spend it but if you've got that backing and that network of course Katelyn I want to bring you in here then you can do more with it and that's you know if you've got if you're a student at university and you come from a wealthy background or a middle class family who can support you then you can do more and potentially have more wealth behind you and potentially inherit that as well but that gap is kind of like compounding interest in a sense because it can get bigger and it can accelerate I mean I again don't want to get too philosophical but it is a danger with me but what does that do to the psyche of a young person in particular who is watching that gap accelerate and watching the time it takes for them for example to save up for a home deposit blow out to 9.9 years on average or whatever it is now but I think that even if you run faster you might not catch it Yeah I think it is quite damaging when you look at the mental there is a mental health crisis at the same time as a cost of living crisis now that is that just shows you the impact that is happening with young people like for example in 2022 like the National Mental Health Youth Mental Health Foundation surveyed that 57% of young people were in decline in Australia and were having increased poor and extreme poor mental health skyrocket including increased suicide rates of young people that in itself is really scary so last year it came out with an analysis of home ownership to be a single person to be able to afford a home in Sydney or Canberra it was estimated you had to be on a salary of $300,000 to own a home by yourself that is unreachable for many I would say what 90 plus percent of Australians so when you're a young person you're seeing these you're trying to even afford basic rent when you're seeing homes dilapidated homes go for millions upon millions of dollars it was almost like and I've heard young people talk about this recently when we've facilitated discussions young people are continuously saying to us we were sold a dream when we were kids we went to school our parents told us go to school go to university make sure you get your degree make sure you work hard once you work hard and you get into the labour market then you'd be able to afford a house then you will be able to spend things but you just have to work hard well that's actually not the case anymore you can work as hard as you possibly can and still not have any money or reserves behind you but an average young person in Australia has less than $2,000 in savings it is quite actually impossible to continue to try and save when we are indexed when going to university we were told we need to do that but then we do our repayments through our tax system but then actually because of the indexation rate is being the highest in the last decade all of that money is just paying off that hex debt and actually it's going up rather than going down so yeah this is having a huge impact on young people and young people are really cynical and that's something that we need to start talking about is well okay what is the impact it's having on their lives but also what's having an impact on their mental health and wellbeing I mean it does feel a little bit rigged sometimes watching and I think I hopefully talk to this Danielle watching you know when the RBA puts rates up they're responding to an overheated economy and then of course the people who bear the brunt of those rate rises of course tend to be mortgage holders tend to be in their 30s or 40s they've got kids, they're working of course they're lucky to even have a mortgage they're people who manage to get on that belt way but the people who are less affected by that kind of blunt tool people who already have wealth or who are retired who have you know still taking cruises I think was mentioned at one point or going overseas and that was mostly over 55s is there a better way I mean because it does make one cynical I think to watch a lot of people suffer I think take the medicine when they're not necessarily the ones who are causing the problem in the first place look I do understand and sympathise with that for you but it does make a couple of points you know one is that the disease where you're trying to cure which is inflation is very very bad and itself it's particularly bad for vulnerable groups and I think Caitlin and Cass have already summed this up really nicely but basically you know prices are going up for everyone but when you've got less in the way of fat you know less in the way of fat in your spending, discretionary spending on one and you've got less in the way of savings or assets to draw down on to manage that you know that means it particularly hurts vulnerable people so in fighting inflation is imperative we don't have a great set of tools so I'm supportive of using the monetary policy tool to slow the economy and bring inflation down but it is blunt and absolutely I think you know and the Reserve Bank have recognised that as well you know one of the channels it works by it's by increasing the cost of servicing loans who holds the loans basically young and middle aged people it does tend to be kind of middle and high income young and middle aged people for the reasons that you point out they managed to get in the housing market in the first place but when we look at the spending data you know we can monitor people's kind of transactions credit card transactions etc what you're saying is exactly right Rick there has been this very sharp aged disparity you know real spending in the kind of post COVID world has actually gone backwards for 25 to 30 for all your olds and quite significantly whereas it has sort of continued to grow for the over 55s so it's it's not ideal there are other tools we should complement it with including various government policies some of which you know they have done and I'm sure Cass has got views on some of the additional supports that might be needed but there's not many nice ways to get rid of inflation is the sad truth I guess it's like any medicine it's not always fun I don't see people lining up for the doctor like it's Disneyland but it does Cass it does it does hurt I guess to have these arguments about you know who's driving inflation it's wage spirals or whatever and then of course being told that we can't give poor people more money because they are more likely to spend it you know the mere reason they need the extra support is because they need the extra money and that's because they've got bills to pay right and the and Daniel I mean absolutely you know the people on the lowest incomes who are relying on woefully inadequate income support payments where you know in our latest survey about three quarters of people are skipping food on a regular basis and about 90 over 90% are in housing stress it's very serious when prices go up but the solution is not to keep people on the very lowest income hungry and homeless that cannot be our response to tackling inflation we were one of the voices urging the Reserve Bank to not continue to bring rates up because part of that often leads to a risk of higher unemployment as we know and of course once you lose your job that is not the solution for you when it comes to facing inflationary prices on the essentials of life you are hit the worst when you lose your job because you fall onto the unemployment payment we would certainly like to see some of the other levers pulled to make sure that we're getting on top of inflation including some you know proposals associated with the regulation of rents we should be we should be properly regulating the private rental market there are enormous tax breaks associated with housing investment in Australia it is a housing service that is provided to people to live with dignity and we are an outlier in this way in which somehow we see that if you're a property investor it's essentially an open market for you to put the rent up as much as you like and to leave it to often very disempowered tenants to try and challenge that for example we certainly think that there should be much better regulation associated with the pricing of energy in Australia I mean Daniel you know what we've seen with energy pricing over the last couple of years in particular and who's paying the price of the over investment in polls and wires for example and what are we doing to the default market offer to make sure that that is properly balancing the desire for profits in the profit market with the fact that energy is the essential service so Rick I mean there are a bundle of other things that we could also be doing to get on top of inflation and of course ACOS was one of the voices saying what are we doing delivering another 22 billion in income tax cuts the original stage 3 design giving $9000 to people on the highest incomes that would be going into their hands and trust me it would be spent in different ways you know we've got a redesign of stage 3 and we're back the redesign of that as much fairer but the reality is that has been spoken about as a response to cost of living it is about giving more income into the hands of people and yet those tax cuts will do absolutely nothing for the bottom one-third of people in the Australian community including the young people that Kate was speaking about who are struggling to get by on barely nothing and so this is the when you know when the community sees this people who are living you know close to the margins know exactly what this looks like they see who's getting the help and who's not and they develop the cynicism about institutions because of that and I think of course that's a great risk for us isn't it when people lose faith that actually the people who should be most looked after are at the centre of the debate and the centre of the design on what is done to help people and so I do just want to really acknowledge all those people and very lowest incomes including all the younger people Kate and who have spoken up to share what is often very hard to talk about in a very wealthy country you know going without food how you get by you know dumpster diving for example to look after yourself sleeping couch surfing being you know hiding in your car we've got mum sleeping in their cars over the country at the moment with their kids hiding their kids from child protection services that's where we're at and so it is very serious and so you know Danielle I think this sort of debate is a very important one and we're delighted just can I say to you as chair of the Productivity Commission because I think there is a high road here and an exciting road if we choose to take it we do need to lift up the incomes of the bottom 40% of the Australian community as the highest priority because that's actually the engine room of a good economy and for all the multiple effects that you know protective effects that it has to make sure we're better at place to deal with you know shocks and crises and then also to ensure that we are really seeing people as our best investment people are very high incomes are looking after themselves and I think many people on high incomes they're not wanting more help actually I think many people have seen just the deep inequalities we had in Australia when we go through the pandemic and what those lockdowns looked like I think we all got a bit of a wake up call there to see who was at risk and who wasn't and so and I remain hopeful that with more and more voices and these kinds of discussions that we will push the country in the direction that it needs to go in a country that we can be proud of Here's a question for you Katelyn and I'm going to piggyback from what Cass was just saying there because I feel like one thing you could do as a government for example if you were going to refuse to raise income support payments and other welfare payments you can pause mutual obligations overnight and this conditionality this punitive kind of attempt to keep people on this merry-go-round of jumping through administrative hoops really that do as far as I'm concerned nothing except make everyone else feel good that we've made people earn their income and give it a tick so I feel like there's this the cost of living yes when prices go up you have to shop around it becomes a tax on your time conditionality and welfare is a tax on your time so I feel like there is another poverty here and it's a poverty of the cognitive resources and of the time available to people to live their life is that a sense that you get particularly for young people who are having to do gig economy work and to run between different jobs to make ends meet yeah so we're definitely seeing that obviously the dramatic increase in the rise of gig economy is because due to the cost of living so we're having young people who are not only especially if they're trying to go to university they're working two to three different jobs we've heard horror stories of one young person who lived in the outskirts of Sydney going to university in the city and they're having to take the train over almost an hour sometimes to go to uni and then in between that they are on their bike trying to deliver food then they're staying up until late past midnight trying to again they were being in the service industry and then they get to go home and by the time they get home it's one to two a.m. in the morning and they have to have minimum sleep and start the day all over again and this is where it comes to creating wealth so you don't have enough time to dedicate yourself to finding good stable jobs you don't have young people not having enough time to be able to go to housing inspections I'm going to give my a personal example for myself me and my housemate so we are renting and our rent we've just come at the end of our lease we are quite scared that we're going to be kicked out because the owner has been trying to sell the property for over a year the property a lot of it is quite damaged and so when we're trying to find a house just trying to even show up whilst we're balancing our lives we can't show up to houses and we're competing against 10, 20 families at a time and that and we're talking about this being scared I am very privileged you know as we've talked about tonight I've just been named AC Young Australia I am so scared about my housing situation that I've had to go to my parents and my housemate said what if we end up homeless because in Canberra there's only less than 2% rental availability and this is again the nation's capital you're looking elsewhere around Australia this is the everyday reality that young people are facing and the impact that the lack of productivity is impacting their ability to have long term building wealth to be able to have supportive friendship and engaging networks to be able to excel in their careers and then to reach out to new opportunities and this is why we're also having a loneliness crisis faced by young people because it's so insular because they're trying to again just barely survive I saw some research from Monash where it's like students are not socializing as much at university because they can't afford a drink and who wants to stay out it's nice to go for a walk in a park but you can't do that all the time and there is just that critical mass of people enjoying their life we should be able to enjoy our life it's okay to have nice things I want to pivot the discussion to a brighter future if that is indeed possible I want to incorporate some of the audience questions thank you for sending them in I am reading them I promise you I'm going to start with you Danielle there is a particular question here for you and it asks is it possible to increase productivity and ensure workers can capture a larger share of those productivity gains is there a way we can do it well sort of like locking in the dimensions I guess and making sure that it's not just corporations like if we can do it and who in the world is doing it best so absolutely we can do it and to be frank you know that through most of time that's kind of what happens right productivity rises, wages move alongside of that and if you kind of charted the long course of history that's basically how things have moved the questioner may be referring to the fact there has been some degree of sorry I'm going to be techie economist again wage decoupling in over the past decade or so so wages haven't fully kept pace with productivity over that period partly that's related to the mining sector and some of the dynamics there that's been a big driver of that gap there is some remaining gap that we don't fully know how to understand and we should think about and try to do so but I can assure the questioner that as productivity grow wages will grow alongside of it there are broader questions clearly of kind of distribution and support for those outside of the labour market that Cass and Caitlin have touched on they matter a lot we've heard very clearly why it matters socially let me put the case that it also matters economically if you're not allowing people to use their skills and talents and to flourish in the labour market we're not making the best of the incredible human capital that we have in this country there's also a broader argument to make sure that the safety net is such that people are actually able to show up to work and to look for jobs that suit their skills when they are available there's an interesting question that's just popped up which I'll flick to you Cass because I do think even high income individuals as this questioner notes seem to be quote unquote punished when we raise taxes right but there's the wealth side of things which often slides through the gatekeeper where people with high wealth might have low incomes or relatively low incomes and that doesn't really bother them as much as long as their wealth is left untouched and this questioner asked as part of the solution isn't increasing the corporate tax rate an option how do you ensure that people who are working long hours and who are paying more tax in that income side of things are left to do their thing I guess and then focus it on the big money earners, the big end of town maybe it's not increasing the corporate tax rate actually collecting the tax with fewer loopholes I don't know Cass what do you think Rick isn't it great let's talk about tax shall we don't you think that's a fine topic very important I care about it a lot because paying tax is a public good paying your fair share is actually a great act of love for the country and for communities a decent tax system is what means that we can protect people when bad things happen it means that we can ensure people get the health care that we all should be able to access and then of course all that list goes on but again it is important to cut through the rhetoric to understand who Australia is at the moment with our overall tax system very wealthy country and yet we collect about the night below us when it comes to our overall public revenues amongst all the wealthy OECD countries and we are also a very low public expenditure country similar so we're really in the bottom of those wealthy country groups when it comes to our revenue base and that is why we struggle to do the things that we should be able to do as a very wealthy country including transitioning to a clean economy and Danielle doesn't that is the existential urgent goal that we must deliver on to ensure that we transition well into a very hopeful future so it is I think very important to see that despite the rhetoric actually we are also not very high taxing when it comes to overall incomes in fact as a percentage of incomes on average we tax income about the same or a little bit less than even the United States there's an awful lot of ways in Australia for you to structure your affairs if you're a wealthy person to reduce your taxable income negative gearing, capital gains discount, putting wealth into superannuation funds private trust and discretionary trust very well organised you can really sizeably reduce your taxable income and therefore you're not being exposed to the tax system in the way that you should really should be to contribute fairly to the public good and the critical services that you and your families would rely on so that's one part of it and then of course the wealth area again we don't have a broad based land tax in Australia and yet we've seen unprecedented growth in the hands of people who've got a portfolio of properties what are we doing there really we do need to secure our tax base and of course land is one of our best most efficient tax bases can't really disappear that's one thing we know where to find it and it is a very good asset for having a really efficient tax that it can be structured so that it's fair STAMTU did not a great tax down as we know it's really it's a problematic one it means it's a barrier Katelyn for young people you know up front the cost it slows down mobility because once you're up front of the cost the last thing you want to do is move in a year it's not efficient in that way either so I just want to give those as a couple of examples Rick you know the way in which yes we should be taxing wealth more in order to contribute to a more decent tax base to do good things that we should be able to do for the community as a whole but there are also ways in which the tax policies are driving behaviours that are not useful for productive investment that are not useful for productivity that are not useful for growing the great jobs of the future I mean why are we still spending a lot of money on tax breaks for fossil fuels then we could do better to tax that and reinvest those dollars to drive clean jobs and to drive transition for communities integrate clean jobs in communities that are currently very heavily reliant on fossil fuels so I just think I love to talk about tax Katelyn I hope you do too stay with it because it's so important it's very exciting the first time I discovered tax breaks and I think Rick we should encourage more and more people to do that and to own it across the Australian community and not allow it Daniel as you've seen I'm sure you know how it's always much more complicated for anybody to understand actually it's very important that was I feel alive I do agree with you about the fossil fuel or tax breaks I mean it's like giving a new after grant to Meryl Streep like I think she's doing okay the coal company probably don't need it at this point I want to be a little bit incendiary but it's not me I want everyone to know this I'm reading a question from the screen and I don't know who asked it whether they're old or young but I want to go to you Katelyn the questioner has asked let's be blunt broadly speaking have baby boomers stuffed it up like they have stuffed up the environment I'm going to caveat that because every time this comes up on Twitter and social media not every baby boomer of course we're talking about structural things relevant to a generation and we know more now but also things have changed and I don't know whether you get a sense for whether that's gone too far and how to unwind that look I could either be politically correct or I could be honest and I'm going to be honest and say that well yes because if you look at the majority of our political leaders and even in now a lot of them are quite older a lot of them experienced a a tax system and a social service system that benefited them a big example is university a lot of baby boomer generations received free education they were also the ones who took away free education and we've seen the impact that we've seen the impact that that has when for example majority of jobs now high income jobs require post graduate degrees but young people often can't afford that because they're trapping themselves into lifelong debt and when they try and receive a house and they try to receive a mortgage the banks go well actually you have a $60,000 debt we're not going to give you any more lending capacity I would say that if you look at our democracy for example our democracy is focused on short term policy solutions we have an election cycle that's every three years which actually in that case it's more than a two year working system then the government focuses on how to get re-elected so this is disincentivising generational policy planning there is an Indigenous thought and also it's really popular in Japan where you look at creating policy and social services for seven generations time what are the decisions that are we making today here and now how is that going to affect people in 100 and 150 years we're not thinking that the purpose that I've seen in terms of social policy is 2050 2075 that means if we're lucky so this short term decision making has been essentially a construct from previous generations it has been sustained within public policy we're not being innovative we're not being courageous and it is true when you're looking at how young people today they're going to be worse off young millennials are going to be worse off than previous generations and we have to start doing something about it we need to start having this intergenerational dialogue and that comes to well going back to our tax system how can we restore it how can we make it intergenerationally fair and that first goes by removing negative gearing and capital gains which predominantly support baby boomers who have all of the property it looks at well inherent in taxes on large incomes that are then shifted down it's looking at those who have big businesses taxing big businesses and redistributing that wealth sorry that was a really long winded answer but I would say that yes baby boomers they use the system to continue to build wealth and that was not then shared generationally and who wouldn't have at the time have taken advantage of all of those things 100% so and again I get why they did it but then we need to start shifting our policy consciousness to more long term strategic thinking and it's about taking courage to go well okay yes we have profited off of this system but now it is morally we need to then think about those who are coming after us we need to thinking about those who do not have as much privilege as we do and ensuring that everyone has a standard of living that we would like for ourselves so it's about shifting that mentality from an individual sense to more of a collective as a country as Cass said who do we want to be as a nation do we want to be a nation of most poverty people who are barely surviving and concentrated wealth for those who are individuals or do we want to be a nation where it is equal and we are thriving and we are happy and we want people to come here because we have a standard of living that promotes equity and happiness I say one of the often in the stereotyping age is stereotyping shameless that happens around us it's one of how the younger generation is not good with money and is not responsible the avocado rubbish I wanted to remember I do want to remember that it was the government made up of people probably of a certain age bracket under the Howard government for example Danielle that introduced the tax breaks associated with the housing market in the boom area era when the resources boom there was bundles of money around instead of investing it instead of putting it into savings accounts to make sure we are ready for the next transition that we needed it all got blown on a lot of tax breaks superannuation tax concessions went through the roof they were policies that were implemented during that boom era and so it was the politicians of the time who often in fact wasted and blew the money and designed those tax breaks that have now fueled quite damaging social and economic conditions for us and so I just think it's really important to also see that there are individuals out there of all age groups who are trying to navigate their way through this but actually these are laws and policies that have created these conditions and it is therefore I think a real opportunity for us to be coming together across ages to say actually we don't want to like that we do want to see good policies put on the table for us to carry the debate properly because I know many people who are older they know exactly the story that you're sharing about the experience of younger people and do want to see the changes that would create those conditions for generations coming through I think when we do and I'm going to throw to you for the longer term view Danielle but certainly one of the, from an individual point of view I've had discussions with people who are like oh yeah no I just bought a house in Sydney and they're lovely people and I'm like oh how did you do that and they mentioned that they saved up some money and then of course they throw in oh and mum and dad gave me some money and it's like that attitude whether it's a baby boomer or a younger person from a little bit of comfortable of a background all you really want is someone to say look these things helped us and they are probably no longer fit for us and what we often get in a political sense is that well we did it tough because we had 17% interest rates which was tough and I remember having an argument with an editor about this who because of that one fact which was difficult refused to acknowledge all the other facts that are currently difficult for millennials and so Danielle from a looking at the strategic point of view about like how do we take an intergenerational equity focus take it forward what are the things we need to be looking at over the long term whether it's one or seven generations I don't expect you to have modelled seven generations at all in your career but maybe you should have and what do we need to look for to change things and you know small incremental changes now with big effects down the track yeah I love the seven generations I think treasury's had a go at 50 years but you may well stretch the error models to deliver but I mean I think Caitlin said it beautifully when she sort of talked about it as can we leave the world has a better place for the generation that comes after us and that's actually all sort of very economics frame that's the frame that I've tried to bring when I think about this issue because I think that is a very human impulse that many people can get on board with so look there's a number of pieces to it you know we've talked about stagnating incomes for young people tonight and that has been particularly the decade pre-COVID basically 25 to 34 year olds the group at the end of that decade didn't they actually end less than the group at the start of that decade that is a big issue we expect generation on generation progress for the reasons I've been talking about tonight so we need to get productivity growth that is going to enable young people to have the opportunities that they should have in the labour market and to get jobs that they are qualified to do that shouldn't be sort of pushed down the jobs ladder as we saw kind of people increasingly having to take jobs at lower levels of education than what they were qualified for so that was one housing we've spoken a lot about the kind of lack of opportunity for young people to get into the market it is a huge issue people are attached on the tax settings I just really want to say supply matters a huge amount as well unless we enable more supply close to jobs and amenities not just sticking people on the fringes we have to build density in our own middle inner and middle ring suburbs that is also unfortunately has a generational dimension to it you know if you want to you know the local hood and aspect can never have it changed that is very nice but what you are doing is perpetuating this problem of unaffordable prices and the New South Wales Productivity Commissioner came out this week and said Sydney is going to be a city without grandchildren and what he means is basically young people are just being driven out and Caitlin has given you some of the stats around affordability we need to boost supply it does mean our cities are going to look different but that is the only way that frankly we are going to deal with this issue over the long term we haven't sort of talked about Indigenous policy and closing the gap tonight but there's lots of intersections around kind of opportunity we just put out a report looking at the closing of the gap review a couple of last week or a week before that showed you know we governments just have not fundamentally changed the way that they are going to need to work and listen to work with be guided by communities when they are making decisions around Indigenous populations and until we fundamentally change that way of working we are going to struggle to meet the ambitious targets that we have set for ourselves there so that that is another really important pivotal long term piece for our economic and social prosperity so those are kind of the big rocks I think from my perspective when I think about what would really shift the dial oh sorry I'm missing climate which you can't really miss when you are talking about intergenerational issues you know Cass has already touched on this but we have to we are making progress we have to make faster progress as does the world because otherwise actually seven generations is almost a kind of moot discussion we have to leave our children and our children's children an inhabitable world where they are not dealing with the worst fallouts of climate change so there are really big important pieces there but those are things that I think about when I think about that generational bargain I mean human kind of we are not great at forward thinking or passing the marshmallow test by waiting for the better thing or doing the hard thing now for the better result in the future I think it's the wise man plants the tree the shade of which he knows he will not sit under but young people don't really have that now we've got to do the work because we're the ones growing up I'm barely young anymore I'm an elder millennial I should probably stop classifying myself in that group but time marches on and people who are voting for certain policies now won't be here in 30 years that's just a fact so Caitlin how do we bring young people into that conversation and not just in a tokenistic sense but actually listen and change the political I mean the debate when Bill Shorten tried to introduce franking tax credits I remember doing some data stuff and the electorates that most voted against it were you know well off older electorates and it's like alright I get it you're trying to preserve a certain lifestyle but we need to change now so how do we actually listen to young people without this kind of I guess intergenerational fun fight yeah so I think for a really long time so just looking at the political landscape the reason why we're having this deficit sort of discussion when it comes to young people we're having a lot of social issues and this generational gap that young people are now facing is because of political design a lot of it was back in 2013 when the Abbott government came into power and all of a sudden they made this unilateral decision to completely decimate the youth sector all of a sudden overnight there was no more office for youth there was no more minister for youth there was no more federal funding for the youth affairs peak body, AIAC which I've been a part of all the federal funding for the sector went away overnight ACOS was actually the one who was leading the charge of trying to bring it all back AIAC was we were struggling to survive I started when I was 20 years old in AIAC we had less than $13,000 left in the bank account and we were just volunteers going how can we keep this alive for young people so for almost a decade there was nothing in 2022 after a change of government after the Albanese government came in they did re-establish youth government structures there was a $10.5 million investment into the youth sector with that all of the structures that once existed under the Gillard Gillard government was then brought back what they're currently doing now is there are youth advisory groups there's a minister of advisory group there's the office for youth AIAC is refunded however it is still not enough in terms of engaging with young people who are faced with the brunt of the policy issues in rural remote First Nations communities they are hardly the ones who have access to these groups and what I think I'd love to see is there is an there's a movement in Japan called the Japan Future Design Movement and I would love people to check it out so basically it is a participatory design movement where it invites community groups so this is specific for looking at long-term city planning and housing planning they invite community groups to think about well what do you want your community to look like in 2060 in terms of housing in terms of transport systems in terms of the environment and for them to design their own ideas now it doesn't have to be rational it doesn't have to be logical rather it's about bringing in all of those different ideas bringing in all of those different diverse perspectives giving it into the hand of the decision makers and that with the experts I would love to sort of see that sort of model be implemented within Australia I think think forward for example is an amazing organization that is trying to change the landscape of promoting intergenerational discussion making our tax system and talks about our tax system accessible by educating young people which I think is really important it's about supporting they have a petition right now to have an intergenerational inquiry on looking at well what are the I actually do have notes on this because I want to make sure it is correct so their system is looking at how do sorry I've lost it go check out their inquiry because it's with government right now and so essentially it's going to make sure that the government and treasury systems looks at well how does our current system affect future generations what are the current gaps how can we start engaging and discussing with young people about these future design systems and I think that's how by listening to young people rather than just seeing them as the problem is a start by sharing power with young people so that they can design their own solutions is really important so that we make politics accessible making sure that we have a pipeline for young people from all across the political spectrum from all different races ages groups ethnicities that they have a place in politics in parliament so that they can start raising their voices from a young age I'm so sick and tired of politicians being dominated by older generations we need both we need young innovation we need new chains of thought we need new decision makers coupled with those who are experts who have been a part of the system and working together it's not us versus them we need to have our parliament reflect the diversity of our communities and I think by creating pipelines directly into politics by creating think tanks by creating do hubs all that kind of stuff with young people that's how we can start shifting the narrative you're brilliant you're fantastic I want to ask you Cass because I think this does when things erode at the bottom I think is when you start to run into crises of social and cultural context and we've got two big changes coming on top of what we've already experienced which is climate change of course and then also another technological revolution it feels like I don't know enough about artificial intelligence but I do know that as someone I saw someone smarter than me tweet they're barely going to do your job better than you but a lot of managers are going to think it will and therefore a lot of people will lose their jobs anyway so these big changes are coming how resilient do you think we are this is a question from the audience how resilient are our social, cultural, political and economic systems in the face of these increasingly volatile challenges particularly they're asking about climate there when things get tough there's a bit of it's tough but every time I get in a room of really diverse people who have lived the reality of the diversity of the lives that we're currently talking about I come out going but we can do this so I want to be with ACOS for example we have now put very front and centre two core strategic goals yes we want to end poverty and disadvantage and we can and we should and something like lifting job seeker the unemployment payment needs allowance to the same rate as the pension rate where it used to be so that it's decent and we live people out of poverty we can do it overnight actually Rick we did it overnight during the pandemic and it was cruel for people directly to see how easy it was we talked a lot about hard things that we could do it tomorrow with political will and we should do it tomorrow and I want to thank all the business people and all the economists and all of the civil society organisations but particular people on very low incomes who have worked very hard to keep that at the front centre of debate we can fix it let's do it but on this this stuff about the dynamism of what's happening global effects, technology effects climate movement we have to reinvigorate democracy and so our other strategic goal is that people directly affected the most risks should be in the front and centre of design it's a democratic you know urgent case for us I think and you saw it Rick in the robo debt roll commission one of the key findings for the commission there was there were a number of political factors that absolutely allowed that to happen on our watch devastating you know tragedy the way that people were brutalised but one of the key findings of the commissioner was we needed to have people directly affected people on low incomes all over government at every stage to get a better outcome from our social security system here and more to that and then the list goes on in the climate area we are right now advocating to ensure that when the legislation to create the net zero authority comes into parliament and it's soon it's in the next month Katelyn watch out for it we need to be in there to say that legislation must make sure that we've got people who are most at risk people on low incomes and young people and people in diverse communities in the room not consulted not an advisory group in the room sitting alongside the resources industry and the energy companies and you know the very perceived powerful people so that you are part of the decision making we're for far too long I think we've had this notion of it's quite a welfare thinking in Australia the powerful people the very sensible people they're the older people that's the reality of it often our decision makers are a certain look and feel typically older white and male and then you've got all these advisory groups come and go and actually get access to the real power and decision making and so I speak a lot more about that because I can see it that that's where you get the adaptive thinking going on and everybody benefits and I know many of the politicians who fit that sort of stereotype profile are absolutely in agreement Katelyn so we've just got to make sure that some of this legislation probably reflects that because otherwise we'll have a default position on this and may I just look I know we're starting to come towards the end but I think we need to also recognise that in the climate and energy transition area it's not a future risk about people missing out and people on more disadvantage being hurt if we don't get it right that is happening now we've got people who have got the access to the best of technologies who are able to reduce their own energy who are retrofitted their homes and who are now actually looking at how they'll make money out of all the industry opportunities of the transition and yet people on lower incomes people younger generations are not I'm seeing in all the decision making structures nor are the low interest investment opportunities being presented to retrofit housing in Australia in the same way as we might want to see when it comes to attracting the best of industries into Australia so it's a major major transformation we're talking about here and I again we have been urging that all layers we must have equity and fairness and the diversity of the population represented in the decision making rooms because we're very aware of the finance sector is there and the finance community is there and the union movement is there that's really important but we need to make sure the diversity of communities are there as well because when you get it wrong it's pretty devastating I agree we are coming towards the end of the evening so I'll go into final remarks but Denial I guess I wanted to feel free to take this wherever you want but given that there is technological change increasing in pace as a productivity effect in its own right but also an unemployment effect I gather what's the thinking around how do we prepare for another great technological shift? Yeah it's such an important question and I think Generative AI is kind of increasing at a speed that certainly none of us anticipated from a productivity perspective and it's a general purpose technologies that can reach into all parts of the economy and potentially transforms a whole lot of sectors you touched on the job effects a lot we think will be around tasks rather than jobs so freeing up the kind of mechanical more easily automated parts of what we do and then the people can concentrate on the things that people do well which is dealing with others and caring and creativity and those sort of things I think it is inevitable though in any major technological shift that some jobs are lost what I can say is two things one certainly past experiences of major technological shifts we have seen job creation being greater than job destruction so overall we actually grow jobs in the economy overall because there are all these kind of new roles that we probably can't even think about what they might be yet what we have to be careful though is those people that do lose work that they're not left behind and so the capacity to retrain to one make sure we have a decent social safety and extremely important two that we are there with opportunities to retain the jobs of the future is really important and that it goes to the heart of getting that broader social buy-in for the change we have seen that with the energy transition as well there are so many renewable energy jobs and if we kept the renewable energy targets I suspect we would have been among the leaders in the world of some of that stuff but we're not here to look into the past we're here to look at the future we've got a little bit of time left for your final remarks but what's your positive what's your source of hope in all of this you see smart people I imagine every day you're one of them is that a source of optimism I think my source of optimism is just the level of buy-in that young people especially from diverse communities have for their willingness to engage their willingness to want to shape and create a better lifestyle not even for themselves but more importantly their communities and those to come they're eager to get involved they're eager to design solutions and we they want hope and they want courageous action and that's why they are out in numbers we are seeing it through their activism through creating through talking to politicians every day trying or even creating their own programs and organizations and businesses if there is nothing there they create it and that is what is filling me with so much hope not only in Australia but we're talking about climate activists from the Pacific literally 12 years old they're going to the United Nations standing in front of the General Assembly saying these are the solutions this is the reality let's find something together and it is that optimism and it's that continual drive that fills me with a lot of hope and I like that and cash in 30 to 45 seconds final thoughts final bits of hope yep I think we demonstrated a different part of the pandemic that when we really see the writing on the wall we're capable of extraordinary things and of coming together as a community it was not perfect but there was some really powerful measures introduced and supported broadly political stakes went up when governments moved to do really big and important things to protect people and so I think that demonstrates for me that if we can be clear enough about the reason why and the sense of what's at stake if we get it wrong then we have this capacity as an Australian community to back the really important leaps that we've got to take I hope it doesn't take more and more extreme weather events for us to take the great leap about the big investments we need to have a fair equitable and just transition but we're capable of doing it we've demonstrated quite recently and that gives me hope and of course I see right across the communities that I am very privileged to spend time with people I meet every day the resilience the grittiness the toughness is absolutely there you know and we have as a country a lot of resources available to us and that can't be said of some other parts of the world in the same way and so with my hope comes also that message that we have a responsibility to do this and that is the sense of pride that comes and you know off the back of the devastating result of the voice I think again for us picking ourselves up and being very clear that if we get it right for First Nations communities and back in the solidarity great innovations you know happening in First Nations communities around change and adaptation in the face of some of the toughest projections and you know sense of despair sometimes then again it demonstrates that you know innovation often gets us where we need to be but we need to be clear-eyed about the facts of where we are at as well to make that case a change Headed not hard-hearted Dr Cassandra Goldie Anya Wood, Caitlin Figueredo it's been an absolute pleasure to host all of you tonight and for the 2024 Wilson Dialogue and thank you to the Australian National University for having us and to our audience for participating I do feel hopeful and I do feel like we can do great things so thank you so much for joining us tonight and good luck