In coming weeks and months, hundreds of thousands of Australians will rebuild their communities in the wake of the summer flood crisis. Local councils, business owners and householders will review the disaster and consider what can be learned as they rebuild their lives and properties.
Times of adversity always bring out our best. They also give us important lessons about our weaknesses – lessons that should guide future action. In some ways, there are parallels between Australian communities rebuilding from the floods and the entire nation rebuilding from the biggest economic disruption we have faced in decades – the Covid pandemic. Just as councils and governments should consider building regulations and projects to mitigate the effects of future floods, as a nation we must review the lessons of the pandemic as we rebuild our economy.
We must recommit to the importance of maintaining a well-resourced public health system with Medicare as its backbone.
We must manufacture more in Australia, particularly when it comes to health products and mRNA vaccines. By building greater self-sufficiency and economic diversity through manufacturing more broadly, we won’t be as vulnerable to global supply chains that break in times of crisis.
We must also address our serious skills shortage, starkly exposed when Covid caused the closure of international borders, cutting off access to overseas workers on temporary visas.
We must build back stronger.
Governments around the world have been taking this commonsense approach. However, the Prime Minister said last week: “I’ve never really been in the build-back-better camp.”
Scott Morrison adheres to a rigid ideological view that if governments will just get out of the way, market forces can meet all challenges. This ideology is unsuited to our times. It is certainly true that governments cannot and should not try to do everything. But government can make it easier for business and communities to respond to crisis. They can provide the leadership the community is looking for.
Now is the time to address the weaknesses exposed by the pandemic and, in the process, make our nation stronger and more prosperous.
If we applied Morrison’s approach to the post-flooding rebuild, we would rebuild our communities exactly the way they were prior to the calamity. And we would never spend a dollar in flood mitigation schemes and infrastructure upgrades that can reduce potential effects of future floods. That would be foolish.
Australia’s post-pandemic recovery will be a central issue in May’s federal election. We must examine the lessons of the pandemic and devise practical policies to build back stronger.
We have been reminded of the importance of healthcare and the need to strengthen Medicare and make it easier to see a doctor.
We should establish a National Reconstruction Fund that backs in new enterprises that diversify our economy.
We must support companies in areas such as renewable energy and high-value manufacturing of medical technology, defence equipment and transport infrastructure. We must address the skills crisis by providing fee-free TAFE courses and additional university places in areas plagued by labour shortages.
We should train up the next generation of builders, electricians and engineers, reducing our reliance on overseas labour and creating the local skills base to drive the recovery of our manufacturing sector. And we must address issues of equality for women by supporting affordable provision of childcare which will lift participation and productivity.
During and after World War II, the Labor governments of John Curtin and Ben Chifley embraced post-war reconstruction as an opportunity to build a stronger Australia. They cemented our alliance with the United States, focused our defence and foreign policies on our region, used post-war migration to boost our skills base and worked with the business sector to develop new industries such as car manufacturing.
They also commenced work on the nation-building Snowy Mountains scheme, which provided the power to fuel the new industries that came to underpin decades of prosperity. Curtin and Chifley looked at the world as it was before the war, including during the Great Depression, and took the post-war opportunity to build back stronger.
Australia has lost much during the pandemic, the bushfires and the floods. But our people have been magnificent and deserve a government with the ambition to build a better future.
Now is not the time to turn back the clock to the pre-pandemic era of low wage growth, insecure work and limited support for Australian families to get ahead. Now is the time to rebuild, the time to imagine a better future for Australia and to take the steps necessary to make that vision a reality.
Anthony Albanese is the Leader of the Australian Labor Party.
Allan and Albanese on notice after Werribee voters revolt
Voters have sent the Premier and Prime Minister an emphatic message; lift your game or you’re gone.
Retail union fund owes a refund
A retail worker who admitted charging a customer for something they did not purchase, but only refunded the payment if asked, would not be in their job for long.