I had the pleasure to watch our wonderful athletes on the last two days of the Commonwealth Games and I only wished Anthony Albanese was here to learn from these great role models.
When I get back to Australia from my trip to Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games, I undoubtedly will tell those who ask how was the getaway, that it was one the times of my life! I not only had a great time, but I was schooled by a company that has had a commitment to telling the time since 1832.
That company is the Swiss-based Longines, who is the official timer of the Games and has had a history of bringing its precision time pieces to some of the greatest events and people of world and Australian history. It has timed the Melbourne Cup, Grand Prix drivers such our first formula one winner Jack Brabham, and provided the flight-assisting watches for the likes of Charles Lindburgh, who first crossed the Atlantic in a plane in 1927, and then they did the same for our Charles Kingsford Smith, who was the first to cross the Pacific in his Southern Cross aeroplane in 1928.
Longines has been timing some of the most inspirational high-achievers for nearly 200 years!
So, it wasn’t a surprise that on Saturday night, I was inspired by one of the best nights of my life. It wasn’t better than when I was married and the arrival of my children and grandchildren, when they were born, but socially speaking and rating other nights out, watching our 4X100 men’s running team take gold at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow was an unforgettable experience.
Gold to that team headed up by Lachlan Kennedy, who is rated number 5 in the world, after running a time of 9.85 seconds, making him the fastest Aussie ever, brought out the air pumping, cheering and uplifted positivity about my fellow Australians. And it told me I was lucky to have been in Glasgow on August 2, 2026.
Of course, I should be in Melbourne, but former Victorian Premier Dan Andrews was not good at budgeting and so the home of a young Billy Connolly and the famous Glasgow Rangers football team, was given 150 million pounds out of the $589 billion it cost Victoria for jettisoning the Games, to do a mini-version of the four-year sports carnival between the countries of the old British Empire.
In case you forgot, the Victorian Premier dropped the event when the initial budget blew out from $2 billion to $7 billion, which raised enormous questions about:
- Who did the initial quote for the Games?
- Why did the costs blowout?
- Who did the budgeting for Dan? And,
- Why can’t the people involved in potentially putting on the Games in Victoria be as productive and high-achieving, as the young, inspirational Aussies that collected 65 gold and 158 medals with one day to go. Note England was only on 26 gold and Canada had 18, which shows this was an outperformance by our wonderful team.
As an economist and media commentator, it’s hard to ignore our country’s biggest economic challenge — our hopeless productivity — which gives us high inflation, rising interest rates and now a slowing economy, which will exacerbate the current falling house price situation that has been made worse thanks to the tax changes in the Budget.
Our recent history tells us that we cannot expect our governments, at any level, will make decisions that will boost productivity without enlightened leadership and policies that make it easy for both big and small businesses to coach their staff to go down the paths of self-improvement, which explains why our athletes performed extraordinarily well.
This chart shows how out productivity has fallen very steeply from around 2007 and that’s when Labor’s Kevin Rudd came to Canberra.
Unfortunately, productivity did not pick under the succession of unimpressive Coalition governments and has got worse sine 2022, under the Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers.
So, clearly, it’s time to look at why we aren’t raising productivity and I’m sure many employer/coaches would like to change the work from home trend, the stress leave trend, the inability to be frank with underperforming worker trend and so many obstacles for a boss to get the best out of workers trend.
Respect for workers has improved and should not be in any way reversed, but we must make changes to allow bosses to lead and coach their teams to better performances.
John F. Kennedy got it right when he said: “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
Longines has been measuring some of the great moments in history and like a great athlete has been striving to improve the technology of recording times such that, the head of the Swiss business that runs the timing of big events such as the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games, told me on Saturday night before our athletes continued their gold rush, that the timing technology used nowadays has become so good there no longer are draws!
Someone in power in our country needs to set better goals for himself or herself to put into process a national commitment to helping workers in businesses set higher standards for themselves.
Our productivity is a problem that cannot be ignored any longer and it’s not unreasonable that we expect our Prime Minister to lead the charge for our economy to start heading toward gold medal productivity performances.
I know I’m being an optimist, but I was never a coach or a teacher who thought being pessimistic was a great strategy for success.
JFK also got it right when he said: “Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.”
It’s time for Australian exceptionalism that is entrenched in our sporting stars to become natural to our employees, which is a job that demands a leader steps up.
