Rudd: Australians need to be more productive

MELBOURNE: Australians must become more productive or risk losing their famously relaxed lifestyle as the population ages and the workforce shrinks, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has warned.

While Australians were urged in the past to "populate or perish", Rudd said the country now needed to boost productivity as the population becomes increasingly elderly and the tax revenue from workers falls.

"It is productivity growth that must play the central role in building Australia's future economic growth," Rudd said in Melbourne late on Monday.