Coronavirus: cash splash next to useless without better modelling

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews speaks to the media during a press conference in Melbourne, Victoria. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Daniel Pockett

Daniel Andrews’s business relief package will be welcomed by some but completely useless for others. And it doesn’t absolve the government of dealing with the issue that has made it necessary.

For those struggling to survive under the extended lockdown, it will provide a modest lifeline to November when they can open their doors again. But the reality facing Victoria is that many small businesses have already closed for good. As the former ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said: “They are finished.”

And with the state losing $1bn a week in economic output since July, $3bn can be viewed as nothing more than a down payment on what is going to be needed. It is but a tenth of what some estimates suggest might be wiped from Victoria’s economy over five years.

More business welfare is clearly necessary, but it is no substitute for getting business operating again.

The Victorian Premier must surely heed the mounting calls to redo the modelling — which he had originally stated was the justification for locking down the state — and find a new roadmap to recovery that takes into account the social ruin and economic devastation, as well as the protection of health, which no one disputes must remain a priority.

Few people believe that the data has any credibility in justifying the measures he has imposed — including the modellers themselves — and the impact on mental health will have a lasting legacy.

Businesses and the community need two things: certainty and hope. Both have been dashed, and the erosion of trust in Andrews’s government is growing every day as he digs in and ignores the calls from the scientific community, the business community and the general community to have another look at it.