Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's top adviser has conceded Australia appeared more prepared to implement reforms in the 1980s than in the present environment of completing 25 years of unbroken economic growth.
But secretary of the Prime Minister & Cabinet Martin Parkinson has told a conference Australia must innovate if the nation's productivity is to improve and lift the nation's living standards.
Reform was driven in the 1980s because it was a decade that was book-ended by two recessions, he told a Committee for Economic Development of Australia dinner in Canberra on Monday.
"We had an Australian populous that had already come to the view that our living standards were in relative decline and we had to do something about it," Dr Parkinson said.
"It doesn't mean reform was easy, it doesn't mean it was easier than it is today, but it does mean the context was different from a situation where we have had 25 years of uninterrupted economic growth."
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He says Australia must innovate if it is to gain a competitive advantage.
History shows demand for the nation's resources have made many people rich for reasons other than their ability to innovate, he says.
"Those times are well and truly behind us," said Dr Parkinson, a former Treasury secretary.
"Our future will be determined by our resourcefulness of our people, not the resources lying under out feet."
