Bran Black,
Chief Executive, Business Council of Australia 

1. As Australia grapples with slowing productivity, skills shortages and global competition, what capabilities will matter most — and how well placed are we to build them? 
We need our business and research institutions working hand in hand, because this is a critical area of global competition — how quickly we can innovate and apply what we create. To do that, we also need deeper local capability. That includes advanced technical and digital skills in engineering, data and AI. It also requires strong trade and vocational skills, particularly in construction, energy and infrastructure, because we simply cannot deliver housing, net zero or major projects without them. We have solid foundations, but we’re not building these capabilities at the depth or pace required. Other countries are moving faster, and that gap is becoming larger.

 

2. From a business perspective, what are the biggest risks to Australia’s economic future if we fail to develop enough highly skilled people and home-grown new ideas at scale? 
The risk is long-term stagnation. Without a meaningful lift in productivity, we end up working harder for less. If we fail to build skills and scale innovation, productivity remains weak, wages struggle to grow, and Australia becomes a less attractive destination for investment. The consequences are fewer jobs, weaker revenues to fund essential services, and a genuine risk that the next generation is worse off than the last. This isn’t a theoretical scenario, it is the trajectory we are on unless we choose to change it.

 

3. How important is stronger collaboration between industry, education and research to Australia’s future growth — and what does success look like? 
It's absolutely critical. No country lifts productivity by working in silos. Success means education and research aligned with real economic needs — co-designed courses, applied research, faster commercialisation, and students transitioning smoothly into high-value jobs. Where this collaboration works well, productivity and investment follow. Our task is to make that the rule, not the exception.

 

4. Looking ahead 10–20 years, what decisions Australia makes now will most shape our ability to remain competitive, innovative and prosperous?
The decisions that matter most are whether we fix the fundamentals. What counts is whether we become genuinely attractive to investment based on the economic basics — workforce capability, regulation and tax settings. That means backing skills, restoring investment confidence, reducing regulatory drag, and aligning our education, migration and training systems with future economic needs. These reforms are hard, but history shows Australia succeeds when it has the courage to act. The greatest risk is not choosing reform at all.

Professor Hugh Mackay AO,
Social psychologist and author

1. You’ve written about social fragmentation, anxiety and loss of connection — what do you see as the biggest social challenges Australia will face in the decades ahead? 
By far the biggest challenge facing our society is the restoration of social cohesion through the rebuilding of local communities that offer a secure sense of belonging. We need to recover the lost art of listening! And we need to downplay our current obsession with personal identity — difference — in favour of a deeper sense of shared humanity that unites us in our diversity. We don’t really know who we are until we know where we belong.

 

2. How important are institutions that bring young people together around learning, ideas and debate in rebuilding trust, belonging and shared purpose? 
The need to rebuild social cohesion is as much an issue for universities as for any other form of community. In the face of increased reliance on technology (especially via online lectures), we need to compensate by increasing our emphasis on collegiality and community. (More small-group tutorials, for a start!) There is no mystery about why 18–24-year-olds have the highest rate of loneliness in our society: they are more ‘connected’ than any other age cohort, yet they lack sufficient personal connection, based on eye-contact. You could argue that education, in the richest sense, is impossible without a rich human context, involving teacher-student relationships as well as a strong sense of collegiality among students themselves. Given the current stage in our socio-cultural evolution, a re-emphasis on person-to-person contact is urgent.  

 

3. What happens to a society’s confidence and cohesion if it stops investing seriously in knowledge, curiosity and long-term thinking? 
Our attention spans are shrinking; our vocabulary is shrinking; young people are becoming increasingly reluctant to give up screen-time in favour of eye-contact time… the role of universities is crucial in helping to reverse these trends. Neglect of the university sector — and education more broadly — would create a society even more vulnerable to the blandishments of political and religious extremists, and other merchants of simplistic messages, especially online. The development of young people’s capacity for critical thinking has never been more urgent.

 

4. When you look at the next generation, what role do places that shape values, critical thinking and civic engagement play in the Australia we are becoming?
At a time when we risk ‘surrendering’ to AI in many aspects of life — including education — we need to reassert the importance of human agency, whether in the context of engagement with education, politics, culture, or society more generally. The role of universities has always been important in this encouragement of ‘agency’; now it is more important than ever. The critical thing is for universities to accept their responsibility to ensure that teaching and research occur in the context of carefully nurtured social connections. As Theodore Roosevelt once said: ‘Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.’ In our schools and universities — ideally — we should be modelling for our students the kind of society we want to become.