Australia Stopped Investing—and Productivity Flatlined | Chris Bradley

Chris Bradley, director of the McKinsey Global Institute, tells Claire Lehmann that Australia has had almost zero productivity growth for a decade—and that the cause isn't mysterious. We stopped investing, and nobody legislates for growth anymore. He also argues the next 75 years could still deliver universal prosperity: every country living like Switzerland does today. Chris Bradley is a co-author of A Century of Plenty: A Story of Progress for Generations to Come (McKinsey Global Institute, 2026): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G66Z5Y4D?tag=quillette-20 0:00 Teaser 0:34 Introduction 1:00 Why McKinsey wrote it at 100 2:15 Our grandparents' century 4:30 The machine of progress: energy, capital, cities 7:00 The firm: prosperity's unsung hero 9:15 What went wrong in Australia 14:00 Giving up on growth 15:00 Luxury beliefs and 'economic measles' 19:00 Zero-sum thinking and the magic of 1 and 2 percent 27:20 Art downstream from technology 29:30 The few firms that drive productivity 33:40 Capital gains tax and talent flight 38:40 Switzerland vs Burundi 44:30 Australia in 2100: AI, energy, earning optimism