Malcolm Turnbull's economic mini-summit comes on the heels of a new global survey highlighting the inadequacies in the Australian system.
The prime minister will be hosting a meeting of business, union and community leaders in Canberra Thursday, as a follow-up to a privately-sponsored reform gathering in August.
The World Economic Forum's global competitiveness report for 2015/16 shows Australia improved by one notch to be 21st in its latest global rankings, ending four years of decline.
But it remains well behind the top three countries of Switzerland, Singapore and the US.
The Australian Industry Group's head Innes Willox says there is a number of key areas - such as labour market efficiency - that continue to hinder Australia's growth and leaves it behind some key global competitors.
"This WEF report underlines the importance of Canberra's new focus on shifting the policy discussion in Australia towards improving our workplace relations, taxation and innovation performance," Mr Willox said.
Employment Minister Michaelia Cash says everything must be on the table at the gathering, as she welcomed the prospect of a debate about penalty rates.
A draft Productivity Commission report suggested Sunday rates for hospitality and retail workers be reduced to match Saturday.
If the final report made a "good case" for sensible and fair changes to the workplace system the government would seek a mandate at the next election, Senator Cash said.
Assistant Productivity Minister Peter Hendy said a key focus for the government is the relationship between tax policy and productivity.
"Because it goes into every area of economic activity," Dr Hendy told Sky News.
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry boss Kate Carnell hopes there is "more meat on the bone" in the tax reform process coming out of the meeting.
She is looking for a holistic tax approach - one that includes individual and company tax cuts, an increased GST and a compensation package for low income earners.
"Tax reform has to be reasonably holistic, it's not about tweaking one tax or another tax, it's about the whole system," Ms Carnell told AAP.
National Seniors Australia, the peak lobby group for over 50s, wants superannuation tax breaks to be reined in for wealthy Australians.
"Too much of it is ending up with people who have substantial super savings anyway and not dealing with those who fall through the cracks," chief executive Michael O'Neill told AAP.
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen agrees, saying this and climate change must be on the table for discussion if the meeting is to be credible.
"We all know that Malcolm Turnbull in his heart of hearts, believes climate change is real and we should have a market-based mechanism to deal with it," Mr Bowen told reporters in Melbourne.
