"While the economy is not slowing as rapidly as expected, it continues to be affected by the policy measures aimed at reducing inflation. With inflation looking to be on a downwards trajectory and further slowing of the economy in the pipeline, there is certainly no pressure for additional interest rate rises as long as prices and wages do not leap higher," Innes Willox, Chief Executive of the national employer association Ai Group said today.
"The terms of trade has fallen sharply and our productivity has continued to go backwards while our unit labour costs have risen. These factors should put us on alert about the fundamental drivers of growth and add priority to policy measures to turn around our productivity and competitiveness.
"The data make it essential that federal and state governments prioritise a focus on improving our flagging productivity to boost our economic performance.
"Measures that will demonstrably reduce productivity, such as the Federal Government's workplace relations proposals, need to be urgently pulled back or else they will further erode our productivity performance," Mr Willox said.
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