That's the question one of Australia's top economists says Treasurer Jim Chalmers should be asking as he prepares to give the nation's flatlining productivity performance a jump-start in Tuesday's budget.
Productivity - basically how effective an economy's workforce is at using tools to turn materials into stuff - is the key to improving living conditions in the long-run and enabling the economy to grow faster without causing a break-out in inflation.
Rather than assuming the government can boost productivity with tax changes, or splashing out on a new spending announcement, the best thing it can do is get out of the way, Westpac chief economist Luci Ellis said in a speech on Thursday.
Legislators increasingly felt any problem had to be addressed by throwing more regulation at it, she said.
As a result firms need to seek approval from an increasing number of agencies to build something, or wrap their heads around increasingly complex regulations and codes.
"I'm reminded of that well-known feminist philosopher Avril Lavigne's lyric: Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?" Dr Ellis told a Women in Economics address at the National Press Club.
"The answer is, of course, that there was always one more thing that someone with the best of intent thought should be added."
Rather than making the economy more resilient, governments risked ingraining a "learned helplessness" if every adverse event continued to be met with a new intervention to cushion the blow, the former Reserve Bank economist said.
Why, for example, when European standards already deem a bike helmet or car booster seat safe enough to use, should Australia need to go further and slap on additional requirements, piling on compliance costs and limiting the availability of products?
Dr Chalmers has made productivity one of the key planks of the upcoming budget.
While leaks out of Treasury have so far mainly included changes targeting intergenerational equity, The Australian reported on Thursday that the budget will include tax write-offs for businesses which would incentivise new investment.
The Australian Financial Review separately reported that the treasurer will raise a cap on the research and development tax break.
"The best way to shift productivity in the right direction after two decades of underperformance is to get what the economists call capital deepening," Dr Chalmers told Sky News.
"That means more investment in things like the energy transformation, the technological revolution, the changing composition of our industrial base."
More cuts to red tape are also expected.
One test for the budget to improve productivity is to ensure that new policies and programs are not overly complex, and do not take away choice or promote learned helplessness, Dr Ellis said.
"And if there is one thing I would hope from this and future budgets, it is to take Ms Lavigne's words to heart and make things less complicated," she said.
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