Just as Sydney was sinking deeper into the morass of a lockdown and Victoria was about to re-enter that familiar territory, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported a week ago that the national unemployment rate had fallen below 5 per cent to its lowest level in 10 years.

But that was in June, and it is likely to be the last piece of good economic news for some time. So rapidly is the economic rebound unravelling – South Australia also joined the lockdown fray this week – that calls for the resurrection of JobKeeper and fiscal stimulus more generally are growing louder.