Teach tots technology: Business Council

Business Council of Australia president Catherine Livingstone has again called for a 10-year plan to prepare for an ageing population.

Ask the head of the Business Council of Australia what she would like to see in the May 12 budget and her response could take a number of hours.

But press Catherine Livingstone for her top priority and she'll tell you she wants to see digital technology learning for four-year-olds and onwards right across the school system.

"They are absolutely capable of it and that's when they should be learning it ... I think that would have a huge impact," she told a Canberra audience on Wednesday.

In a speech to the National Press Club, Ms Livingstone warned that failure to prepare for an ageing population and the adaption of new technologies will result in falling living standards.

She reiterated the need for a 10-year plan that looks beyond the annual budget process.

It comes at a time when the global economy faces a combined force of digital disruption, shifts in economic power, globalisation and demographic change - each a strong force in its own right.

"The ageing of our population combined with the impact of hyper-connectivity will literally overwhelm us if we don't rapidly increase our rate of adaptation," she said.

But it would require "extraordinary" levels of leadership from government, business and the community.

More must be done than just relying on the traditional lagging indicators of the three Ps - productivity, participation and population.

"We talk endlessly about participation, but a pre-condition for participation is that the underlying jobs are there," Ms Livingstone said.

Respected economist Saul Eslake says it is not easy to identify where a new wave of Australian economic growth will come from and probably why the economy will suffer an extended period of below trend growth for another year.

The Bank of America Merrill Lynch chief economist believes there is a one-in-four chance of Australia experiencing a recession in that time, which would be the first in 24 years.

That would see government debt blow out even further.

"It would be fair to say we are one recession away from losing our AAA rating," he told Sky News.

"If the budget remains on the trajectory that it's likely to in the absence of any action to put it on a better path towards surplus ... that's not a position we want to be in."


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Source: AAP


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