Jeff Kennett: Opening Victoria is crucial to coronavirus rebuild
Our young kids should be back at school, restaurants open with restrictions and some employees returning to the office, because if not now, then when will Victoria’s coronavirus rebuild begin, asks Jeff Kennett.
Opinion
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It takes only a week to demolish a house, but then a year or longer to build a new one.
A multi-storeyed office or apartment block can take two years or longer.
Australia and Victoria are considering how to start the rebuilding process.
Be assured it will take a long time and the result will probably be nowhere near like what we left behind in January when we became aware of coronavirus and then started combating its spread.
Governments are now considering which of the restrictions should start to be lifted. Some are easy to identify.
In Victoria, I hope the numbers attending weddings and funerals will be significantly lifted, with social distancing. Social distancing is an element of the current restrictions that will probably remain in place until the second or third tranche of restrictions are lifted.
Restaurants should be able to open, but with restricted patronage to include social distancing.
Schools should reopen particularly for younger age groups. Perhaps primary schools should open first — the discipline of attending school and the interaction with other students and teachers in a person’s early years is very important. Not forgetting the importance of what they are taught.
Elective surgery is already being ramped up, to the relief of those in pain waiting for long delayed corrective operations.
It will be interesting to see if pubs and clubs get the green light. If so, social distancing will
still be required, which might put the economics of opening such venues, as with many
restaurants in doubt.
Fishing and golfing restrictions should be lifted because the practice of both activities can be restricted to small numbers of people and can both be considered exercise or at least wholesome activities for the mind in times of limited activity and social engagement.
hope that offices will be again be allowed to open. However, such a return to work might be phased-in, with employers being allowed to have 50 per cent of their workforce return to the office, with social distancing. The other half could continuing to work from home. The employees working from the office and those working from home could be swapped week about.
We need to start increasing the foot traffic on our streets, allowing shops, restaurants and cafes to come back to life. We can practice social distancing as we do now at supermarkets, Bunnings, chemist shops, and outside those coffee shops that keep sustaining us through these times.
I hope through the National Cabinet our federal and state leaders can agree to open our borders within Australia so we can move freely within the country. We cannot travel overseas, so the next year presents a wonderful opportunity to see Australia for our own pleasure but also to help rebuild our domestic tourism industry which has been decimated.
The removal of restrictions on internal travel would also allow our airlines to start flying again, if only in a small way.
I was pleased to see the Victorian Government give a small amount of money to the arts sector here in Victoria. That is another industry that has been totally closed. This aspect of our life needs to be reopened, not only for those who work within it, but for our pleasure and enjoyment. Again, with social distancing such relaxation should be possible.
And it is not only the large arts organisations that need to be reopened and supported but the very many smaller companies that give Victoria its cultural heart.
Finally, there is sport. So important, but only when the health officials give the green light that it might resume under, I am sure, certain restrictions.
These measures will allow us to start the rebuilding our village.
Some things will not return to the same level of activity, if re-open at all.
Sadly, many smaller retail shops will not reopen. Many were already closing before coronavirus arrived. High costs of rent and online shopping were already having a major impact, with many strip shopping centres littered with shops for sale or rent.
Universities will have substantially shrunk, given the closure of our borders that have prevented the arrival of thousands of overseas students to live, rent, eat and be educated here.
Given the importance of overseas students to Melbourne and Victoria’s economy, and given our borders will probably not open until the end of the year, the adverse impact on Victoria
will be huge. The question remaining is, will such students ever return in such numbers or will they be looking at other destinations for their education?
All our universities are reporting reductions in revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and staff reductions. Do not be surprised if we see some campuses having to close.
Those in the construction industry have fortunately been able to work, but the question will be, how much new work is commissioned in the foreseeable future to take up the slack when the current projects are completed?
The reality is, for the foreseeable future we will have a slowdown in Victoria’s population growth if not a reduction. With many people now able and wishing to work from home, I suspect the requirement for office space will substantially reduce.
The Victorian Government says we will continue to build infrastructure, that being the “bridge to the other side” of the coronavirus. This is fine in principle, but dangerous in practice.
You cannot put all your eggs in one basket. And if current experience is anything to go by, all current major projects are running over budget, and some years behind schedule.
Finally, as I mentioned last week, federally and here in Victoria we will have mountains of government debts we have never had before — in Victoria around $80b by 2023.
Victoria will never be debt-free again. How to encourage economic growth, to provide for the services our community expects our government to provide, and pay the interest on our debt, particularly when interest rates rise, are questions that need urgent answers.
The time has come to start rebuilding, plans need to be identified, plans pursued.
Spending other people’s money is easy, earning it is more difficult.
If Victoria is going to come out of this challenge on the other side as well as we hope, the government better tell us quickly how they are going to assist that partnership.
Otherwise, sadly, with the house having been partly-demolished the rebuilding will take longer than we all would wish.
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