Like taxing blood donors: Bank boss reveals biggest gripe

Résumé détaillé

Australia is stuck in a productivity slump. NAB boss Andrew Irvine says this tax is “the most atrocious, abominable” factor.

The head of one of the nation’s largest banks has likened state payroll taxes to “taxing people who give blood” in a full-throated plea to the nation’s politicians to slash red tape and government spending.

But the chief executive of Australia’s biggest home lender, Matt Comyn, has cautioned borrowers that interest rates will remain higher as the world deals with the AI construction boom, geopolitical disruption and economic shocks that seem to be accelerating in number.

NAB boss Andrew Irvine and Comyn gave evidence on Friday to a parliamentary hearing into the banking sector that has been dominated by the state of the economy, government spending and the housing market.

The British-Canadian Irvine, who took over as the head of the NAB in 2024, said he continued to be stunned that a country as large as Australia with a population of less than 30 million could have a housing crisis.

“It’s honestly like we’re playing poker with a handful of aces and we’re losing. How is that possible? I find it so disappointing,” he said.

Irvine said the level of regulation across the country, especially when it came to construction, was way too high.

He then turned his attention to the tax system, particularly state payroll taxes.

“[It’s] the most atrocious, abominable tax. It would be like taxing people who give blood,” he said.

Irvine said that in the early 2000s, government spending as a share of the economy was a “world-class” 23 per cent. Now it was around 29 per cent which, while lower than most nations, has grown strongly under both sides of politics.

Début de l'article, extrait de Brisbane Times. Pour lire la suite, ouvrez l'article chez le média.