Opinion

There should be no return to the world before the virus

We will look back on the pandemic as the beginning of a new age. It's an opportunity to introduce a new social compact and to restore the fair go.

Emma DawsonContributor

Sep 28, 2020 – 2.34pm

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This week marks the end of the beginning of Australia’s response to COVID-19. As the Treasurer prepares to hand down his much-delayed budget next Tuesday and the rates of both emergency income support payments, JobKeeper and JobSeeker, are reduced, we are moving into the second phase of our new, “COVID-normal” lives.

The fragile consensus of the past six months, in which the usual political disagreements were subordinated to the common goal of saving lives and livelihoods, was never going to last.

Emma Dawson is executive director at Per Capita.