Morrison unluckiest PM we’ve had

Paul Kelly, in his inimitable style, tells us the problems besetting the federal Government and how they can be solved by Scott Morrison (“Finding a solution more complex than global financial crisis”, 3/3).

Wasting scarce money on school halls, insulating houses and installing solar panels won’t work this time. Obviously, there won’t be a budget surplus; pity, but that’s how it is. But to hear the chortling of Labor Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers on Sky TV that there will not be a surplus exemplifies how lucky the nation is to have the current administration.

Morrison must be one of the unluckiest prime ministers to date. To inherit a large debt, courtesy of the Labor administration; to take over from an incompetent prime minister, who left him with a minority government; a country with severe drought and bushfires; and now saddled with a deadly virus.

However, we must approach the future with confidence that the nation is in good hands.

Lesley Beckhouse, Queanbeyan, NSW

Unfortunately, rate cuts and stimulus measures to boost confidence in the economy will not serve to contain the actual coronavirus — or to create any jobs to manufacture new fridges, microwaves, clothing, pharmaceuticals, machinery, building materials and so on. All it will do is to show how panicked, ill-prepared and inept we were in the creation of our modern Australian economy.

Unfortunately, the worst of it is likely to be ahead of us — and will be for some time. We voluntarily have made ourselves vulnerable to this predictable situation — the inability to physically support ourselves.

Peter Bower, Naremburn, NSW

Robert Gottliebsen may well have a point about the stock market influencing real estate values (“Sharemarket recovery will decide property’s fate”, 3/3). Investors and developers who conclude the industry will go through the coronavirus unscathed are playing with fairies at the bottom of the garden.

The property market is already on life support in Western Australia. I fail to see where any fast improvement in 2020 is coming from. Once the bargain hunters have packed up to wait for the sun to shine again the industry will be dead in the water. Subsequently, the improvement on the eastern seaboard will be very short lived.

John Bain, South Bunbury, WA

Your editorial is spot on (“Focus on demand ignores it’s the supply side, stupid”, 3/3). Further reductions to official interest rates, as we saw on Tuesday, will do little to boost our economy. What is needed is significant investment aimed at improving productivity. Right now, there is a case to support that with attractive investment tax concessions. But that should be accompanied by reforms in industrial relations and reductions in red tape and bureaucracy at federal and state level. And the government should show courage and foresight and start mapping out proposals to overhaul and simplify our outdated tax structure.

Michael Schilling, Millswood, SA

The Reserve Bank board has lost the plot completely. What on earth will a 0.25 percentage point cut in the interest rate do when the rate was already so low? This isn’t going to make business invest, consumers buy or travel more in the face of the impact of the coronavirus. The plain fact is that we, like other countries, are going to take an economic hit.

Eric Hodge, Pearce, ACT

To keep on doing something that isn’t working in the hope that it eventually will smacks of desperation. As far as lowering interest rates is concerned, the Reserve Bank has an economic box of wet matches. Many people have already been hurt, the housing market is grossly distorted and share indices, until the coronavirus induced correction, were at record highs. Even a fool can see that the conventional interest-lowering solution is not the answer. It’s time the Reserve Bank mandarins started to earn their pay. After all, they were hired to solve the difficult problems, to give advice and to handle the tough times.

Keith O’Dempsey, Clontarf, Qld

In reply to Rob Park (Letters, 3/3), the Spanish flu of 1918 was given its name because Spain was neutral in World War I and its press wasn’t subject to the same censorship as other countries. It reported more fully on the problem and got stuck with its name.

William S. Lloyd, Denistone, NSW