Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will hand down the five-yearly Intergenerational Report on Monday and has warned Australia's slow population growth will be a challenge for future productivity gains.
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The IGR is a guide to how the Australian economy will perform over the next 40 years, or "war gaming demographics" as one prominent economist puts it.
Labor has already questioned the reliability of the report's forecasts given the coalition's 2015 version delivered by former Liberal treasurer Joe Hockey was "so spectacularly" wrong, even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
But Market Economics managing director Stephen Koukoulas defends the aim of the analysis, even if its growth forecasts prove to be a few billion dollars out.
"What it is trying to identify is how our demographic position is going to be over the next 30-odd years," Mr Koukoulas told AAP.
"The IGR is like war gaming demographics - even if it doesn't happen and things change, what should we be doing now."
The report was first introduced in 2002 by former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello.
The 2021 report, the fifth in the series, is a year later than scheduled due to the pandemic.
Mr Koukoulas said it feeds into policy decisions on aged care, health care and superannuation, and may help gauge how many people will be self-sufficient in retirement in 2050.
"If you don't have it, what do you do with super, what do you do with health care and these sorts of things," he said.
Mr Frydenberg provided a broad outline of what to expect from the report while addressing a Committee for Economic Development of Australia dinner on Wednesday.
He will launch the 2021 IGR at a separate CEDA conference in Melbourne on Monday.
"The Intergenerational Report will kick off a broader discussion about our challenges we face, whether it is around productivity, population, the ageing of the population and the like," he said.
Mr Frydenberg said the economy is transforming and posing challenges.
Over past few decades, 80 per cent of Australia's economic growth has been driven by productivity - the 30-year average for productivity growth has been 1.5 per cent.
"We're not there," he said.
He said population growth is a key driver of productivity.
"What you are going to see in the IGR is our population is going to be smaller than we initially thought because of the effects - and that's a permanent thing - because of what has happened with COVID. We just don't make that up," he said.
"Population growth is the lowest level in 100 years, net overseas migration is negative and it is going to take some time to pick that up."
A new analysis by Labor has found even before the pandemic, the 2015 forecasts have proved to be well short of expectations.
As of December 2019 the economy was $91 billion smaller than predicted in 2015 with a cumulative loss of $201 billion in economic activity.
This underperformance equates to an average loss of $8036 per person, it says.
"Having so spectacularly over-promised and underdelivered on their last Intergenerational Report, how can Australians trust Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg to live up to this one?" shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers told AAP.
"After eight long years, Australians know the rhetoric never matches the reality."
He said the country can't afford for this report to be another missed opportunity.
"This Intergenerational Report must offer the long-term thinking required to ensure our economy and society are stronger after COVID than before," Dr Chalmers said.
Australian Associated Press