Australia is standing on a burning platform of change. It is in the national interest to be more ambitious in pursuing economic reform in the COVID-19 era. The worry is that the political system is in danger of undershooting the task of building a stronger economy out of the crisis.

At The Australian Financial Review’s second Reshaping Australia Dialogues’ session on the economy on Thursday, National COVID-19 co-ordination commissioner Peter Harris, who is in charge of the Morrison government’s post-virus plans, said the most important policy priority now was confidence, and doing nothing that would unsettle job creation as the number of unemployed Australians hits the 1 million mark. What Mr Harris terms “ideology” must take a back seat, he says. That suggests avoiding damaging political battles over tax or industrial relations reform.