It is imperative that politics does not trump the livelihoods of millions of Australians, many of whom are preparing to travel interstate over the Christmas break after a year from hell.
With Australia among the best-performing countries in suppressing COVID-19, knee-jerk reactions from premiers and chief ministers in response to the Sydney cluster would be akin to shooting ourselves in the foot.
The national cabinet agreed to reopen the country by Christmas in support of tourism operators, small businesses and families who have suffered enough.
With JobKeeper and JobSeeker coronavirus payments ending in March, national cabinet leaders knew they had to get as many businesses and jobs back online by the end of the year.
The three-month extension of welfare payments was designed to avoid the worst of the fiscal cliff. With the jobless rate in November falling to 6.8 per cent, consumer confidence surging, the housing and property markets booming and iron ore prices hitting 2013 levels, Josh Frydenberg rightly said it would be “premature” for states to reimpose border closures.
The Treasurer said when South Australia went into lockdown, consumer confidence fell.
“That is the one thing that dents confidence — if you have stop-start restrictions, lockdowns, border closures,” he said. In the mid-year budget update, Treasury concedes its prediction of no state border restrictions being in place next year could be “substantially different to forecasts”.
Treasury’s assumption that West Australian Premier Mark McGowan, who faces an election in March, won’t slam his border shut may prove optimistic.
Scott Morrison on Thursday said Australia was going to have a Christmas “few other countries are going to have”, adding: “Australia is open again and I think Australians really like that. And I think Australians are going to work hard to keep it that way.”
The national economic recovery is predicated on factors outside the control of Morrison and Frydenberg, which is guiding the government’s cautious approach.
New COVID-19 outbreaks, the pace of Australians returning to work, a successful vaccine rollout, and China’s continuing demand for iron ore and metallurgical coal are the great unknowns.
Australia remains a long way off returning to pre-pandemic employment levels and economic growth. Debt and deficit levels are at record highs. The closure of international borders impacting the higher education and tourism sectors and China’s threats to block or impose tariffs on Australian exports will place long-term pressure on key industries.
A bright spark is the potential gains from China’s demand for iron ore. By low-balling the iron ore price, the government is setting itself up for a windfall.
Shifting people off JobKeeper and JobSeeker is a key priority for the government, which will ramp-up spending on skills, training and manufacturing next year.
As the Prime Minister said, the secret to paying down the deficits accrued during the crisis is “when Australians no longer need income support from taxpayers and become taxpayers themselves”.
More Coverage
Pope Francis raised problems but he didn’t solve them
With the Catholic Church having played a vital role in the development of freedom in the West, the next pope must live up to that legacy.
No matter who wins, the banks will cash in on housing crisis
As someone who’s recently bought a place in Melbourne, it’s personally reassuring that no matter who wins the federal election house prices are likely to keep rising.
State and territory leaders must hold the line and not unravel the economic gains that have been achieved in the past three months.