Our dollar was hammered again as the world concluded that among developed countries, we would be the nation hit hardest outside of China and its immediate neighbours.
And the markets are right. This is going to be a very rugged time as our key industries like minerals (prices of oil and iron ore have been slashed), agriculture, tourism and tertiary education face unprecedented blows.
But if we are smart, longer term, we can turn this around by playing to our untapped strengths. No peace time prime minister has ever been handed a better opportunity to lead the nation out of the potential mire. If Scott Morrison is good enough, he can steer us through the crisis into a much brighter future by fostering our strengths.
Our first untapped strength is that we start with a budget surplus – thank you Josh – but we must now spend it, and much more, to maintain and improve our broadly defined infrastructure.
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Food for thought
Let’s start with food. The Chinese say the coronavirus started in their food preparation. That being the case, it will substantially increase the Chinese demand for clean food grown and processed overseas in countries like Australia.
As an aside, I suspect that the virus actually started at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is developing deadly viruses. Among its chiefs is a former head of China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences who has described biomaterials as the new “strategic commanding heights” of warfare.
Regardless, Australia’s food opportunity means we must quickly restore and improve our bushfire-ravaged rural areas and focus on water.
We have at least two vast and untapped water resources. The first is deep underground in Gippsland. It happens to contain gas which would slash eastern state energy costs. Although the resource has nothing whatsoever to do with so called “fracking”, the Victorian Government bans the use of the water on Gippsland pastures and the extraction of its gas by asserting, completely falsely, that it requires fracking.
Gippsland can become a world source of drought proof clean food.
We have one if the world’s best food infrastructure complexes in the Murray Darling basin and regular surplus water in Queensland. New technology enables us to bring that water south to the Queensland rivers flowing into the Darling. Restoring Gippsland and the Murray Darling should also be the focus of whoever becomes Nationals leader working with the PM.
A lifeline for unis
If the crisis continues for months rather than weeks our universities will need substantial help. They are a vital export industry but the “survival money” must come with the qualification that they improve the quality of what they deliver to students — particularly Australian born students.
We have a chance to push this great industry into better serving its customers. I set out some of what is required last August.
Like universities, tourism operators have become wonderful exporters. Overseas demand will come again and in greater numbers so, like universities, we will need to retain the best of our infrastructure. The lower dollar and incentives to attract local tourists will be part of the solution.
We are going to need a strong building industry. We have discovered we can attract first home buyers back into the market with the first-homebuyer deposit scheme. It needs to be widened and extended.
But when the crisis is over we must also be prepared for a big rise the demand from Chinese to migrate to Australia. I know this creates great controversy in the community, but it will be an opportunity to substantially expand our skills base, particularly if we link migration to university education.
A science-led recovery
And Australia does not have to restrict itself to traditional export industries. Our second largest company is a global pharmaceutical products leader CSL. It is likely to be soon our largest company.
Our scientists are among world leaders in the drive to find a cure or vaccine for the coronavirus.
And as if to encourage the nation to look in this direction for growth this week Mesoblast announced that it has submitted it has a completed a Biologics License Application to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Reconcile, its lead allogenic cell therapy for the treatment of children with steroid-refractory acute graft versus host disease.
Mesoblast has become global leader in stem cell-related cellular medicines for inflammatory diseases. The announcement does not mean FDA approval but Mesoblast is already preparing for that approval and has another stem cell related medicine well down the pipeline.
Back in September, the industry superannuation funds reversed their old investment policies and decided to invest a small part of their funds in this groundbreaking Australian technology.
After an initial paper loss, the industry funds are showing big paper profits and so may be encouraged to back another project and create a centre of excellence. And the government needs to restore its old pro-research policies.
My message is that if the world is right and we face a major problem then we should not lose our nerve.
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