Australia: putting fairness between generations at the centre of economic reform

---

What Australia did

In August 2025, the Australian government convened an Economic Reform Roundtable in Canberra, bringing together 25 participants including policymakers, industry leaders and community representatives over three days to discuss strategies for enhancing productivity, resilience and budget sustainability, and for ensuring fair economic opportunities for future generations.

How it Delivered

The roundtable produced ten broad areas of consensus, among them establishing a fairer intergenerational tax system. On tax specifically, the Treasurer named three guiding priorities, and addressing intergenerational inequity was the first, alongside boosting business investment and simplifying the system. Participants recognised the need to tackle disparities between generations, with the Treasurer noting that the tax system's most troubling imperfection is "best seen through an intergenerational lens". The commitment carried through into policy: the 2026–27 Budget's tax package, titled "Tax reform for workers, businesses and future generations", responded directly to the roundtable and to the need to address intergenerational equity.

What Made it Work?

Naming intergenerational inequity as a headline economic priority, alongside productivity and investment, moved the issue from the margins of social policy into the core of economic debate. Bringing community representatives and unions to the same table as policymakers and industry helped keep the generational lens honest, and building broad consensus made the resulting reforms more durable.

Future Generations Takeaway

Economic reform decides who pays and who benefits, now and decades from now. Australia's roundtable marked an important integration of younger and future generations' interests into economic policymaking, and began turning that framing into fiscal policy. Keeping the future open includes keeping it affordable.

This case study is based on one kindly shared with us by the us by School of International Futures (SOIF) and can be found in their digital implementation handbook: 'One Year in Practice: Stories of Global Action for Future Generations'.  We have updated and expanded some case studies with more recent developments and additional sources where relevant.