Tony Abbott urges business leaders to help drive tax reform, convince Labor to join 'Team Australia'

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has urged Australia's most influential business leaders to drive a new wave of economic reform and help convince Labor and the states to join the patriotic front he calls "Team Australia".

Mr Abbott spoke to more than 400 leading executives at the annual Business Council of Australia dinner in Sydney last night.

He praised the economic reform efforts of the Hawke and Howard governments and implied that reform had stalled under prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
He noted the Business Council's central role in the economy and called on business leaders to help promote a new wave of economic reform, including an urgent overhaul of the tax system.
"Because no reasonable person thinks that our current tax system is the best we can do," Mr Abbott said.
"No reasonable person thinks that the current dog's breakfast of divided responsibilities is the most efficient way to run our country."
Mr Abbott acknowledged the reforming zeal of some his predecessors and said he wanted to resume that fight.
"The period from 1983 to 2007, the era of Hawke and Howard, of Keating and Costello, was a golden age of economic reform," he said.
"The lesson of history is that serious reform does take time, and that's why it must start now if it is to come to fruition within the next five years."

Labor Party invited to join 'Team Australia'

Mr Abbott also encouraged all sides of government to join together for a long-range plan for economic reform.
"I am inviting the Labor Party, the state governments, to join Team Australia and to think of our country and not just the next election," he said.
Former Queensland Labor leader Anna Bligh, now on the board of Medibank Private, accepted Mr Abbott's praise for Mr Hawke and Mr Keating.
"I was very pleased to hear the Prime Minister tonight acknowledging the great work of, the great economic reforms of previous Labor governments," Ms Bligh said.
"I think that kind of bipartisanship is something that makes the country stronger."