Whatever else happens with COVID-19 from now on, it will leave us with by far the most severe economic problems since the Great Depression. The most severe for Australia, and for the world. How long will it last, how deep will it go and how will it affect long-term prosperity political systems and international order? A great deal. Whether partly for good or entirely
for ill depends on receptivity to knowledge, and our political system’s capacity to act decisively in the national interest in response to knowledge.

It is impossible to snap back to what we had last year. Nor should we want to snap back. Australia’s economy performed badly for most of its citizens in the seven years between the China resources boom and the pandemic – the dog days. Unemployment and underemployment in the later dog days remained well above developed countries that suffered much greater damage from the GFC. Real household income per person and real wages stagnated. Growth of productivity and output per person were lower than in the developed world as a whole, the US and even Japan.