This submission responds to the 2025 National Small Business Strategy arguing it fails to deliver solutions to Australia's productivity crisis. The submission proposes eight core budget priorities and a suite of recommendations to stimulate the economy by reducing regulatory pressure on Australian business.

This report highlights good practice regulations and planning systems critical to boosting productivity, investment and opportunity for communities across the country. The report compares state and territory planning systems, payroll taxes, land taxes, licensing and other regulation that may be holding back business activity across Australia.

This report questions whether payroll taxes affect firm growth by examining a recent cut in South Australia’s payroll tax rate for small businesses. The tax cut may have been counterproductive because it introduced a sharp increase in tax rates for firms with payrolls between $1.5m and $1.7m which made it less attractive for firms to...

Behavioural science research and practice are increasingly identifying ways in which government processes are hindering equitable and efficient access to programs and the policy benefits they deliver. This paper delineates good practice principles, derived from ten case studies, aimed at promoting the integration of 'sludge' audit methodologies into public governance and service design.

With industrial policy comeback and rising protectionism, the authors of this paper explore whether protectionism is still an important policy tool, and if not, which policy tools are available for policy-makers.