Mathias Cormann's cost of living warning: copying populists will not fix prices or productivity
OECD secretary-general Mathias Cormann will warn Australia's mainstream parties against adopting populist policies such as migration caps, arguing productivity is the only reliable long-term way to lower the cost of living. He delivers the address to the Centre for Independent Studies on Saturday night.
Mathias Cormann's cost of living warning: copying populists will not fix prices or productivity
A warning delivered as One Nation climbs
The OECD secretary-general and former finance minister will use a Saturday night address to the Centre for Independent Studies to argue that boosting productivity - not populist fixes - delivers housing, real wage growth and lower energy costs.
The timing matters. One Nation's primary vote has surged since the 2025 federal election, reaching 25% in the latest Guardian Essential poll, above the Coalition's 22%. The party, which largely runs on an anti-immigration platform, is not directly named in Cormann's address.
- Cormann is the OECD's secretary-general
- He was Australia's longest-serving finance minister
- One Nation's 25% primary vote puts it ahead of the Coalition's 22%
Why mainstream parties 'lose twice'
Cormann's core argument, according to his prepared remarks, is that parties which answer a populist surge by adopting its economics do not win those voters back - he will say they lose twice, first to the populists and then at the centre.
Mimic the populists, and you simply confirm that they were right all along
He will frame populism as a problem to be solved rather than a bandwagon to be joined: deliver homes, lower energy costs, real wage growth and a credible budget, and the populist tide recedes.
Migration caps and what the OECD found
The address will criticise arbitrary migration caps imposed regardless of their effect on business, hospitals, aged care or universities. At the same time, Cormann will acknowledge that more Australians than at any point in the past 20 years say the intake is too high, often citing housing.
His proposed answer is to work on housing supply, infrastructure, services and the composition of the intake. He will point to OECD research across Australia's regions:
- In places where more migrants arrived, employment among Australian-born workers grew faster, not slower
- The research found no measurable wage effect
- Without migration, Australia's working-age population would shrink as the older population grows
Tariffs and the productivity answer
Cormann will also take aim at tariffs - those imposed by Donald Trump and proposed by One Nation - arguing they would fail to address the cost of living and could instead raise costs for farmers, miners and builders.
He will say an ageing country that shrinks its working-age population while promising more spending on health, care and defence has not developed a plan - it has put forward a contradiction. In his view, there is no populist shortcut through tariffs, caps and state banks, and Australia can only grow its way out through an economy that produces more, competes harder and grows faster than its costs.
The address to the Centre for Independent Studies is set for Saturday night.
