Australia’s Productivity Commission puts digital reporting on the table
Australia’s productivity growth has been slowing for more than a decade. To tackle it head-on, the Federal Government asked the Productivity Commission (PC) to run five major inquiries under its five-pillar productivity growth agenda. One of those inquiries, “Harnessing data and digital technology”, includes draft recommendations that could have a lasting impact on the way Australian companies report.
The PC highlights that data and digital technologies are modern engines of growth, but Australia isn’t using them to full effect. Alongside proposals on AI, privacy, and data access, the Commission has issued Draft Recommendation 4.1: making digital financial reporting the default. That means structured, machine-readable submissions replacing the outdated PDF or hard-copy lodgement still required under the Australian Corporations Act.
It’s a striking reminder that Australia is behind in this field. Most advanced economies have already moved to structured reporting. Investors, regulators, and businesses in the US, UK, EU, Japan, Singapore, South Africa etc., have long been working with XBRL. Australia remains an outlier.
The costs are obvious: manual rekeying, delayed analysis, inconsistent data quality, inconsistent coverage. People working with financial data in Australia need to spend time copy-pasting numbers out of PDFs instead of building insights.
By making digital financial reporting the default, Australia could unlock the same benefits already seen elsewhere: faster, cleaner access to data; better comparability across companies and sectors; and a foundation that allows AI and other analytical tools to actually perform.
The Productivity Commission is inviting comments on its interim report. This is the moment to add your voice and help ensure digital reporting finally gets the green light. XBRL International is working to deliver our comment letter prior to the 15 September deadline — consider adding your voice!
Read the consultation and respond with your thoughts here.
