This Covid siege mentality could change us forever

‘Fortress Australia’ as a strategy to combat the virus has caused longer term uncertainties about our social makeup.

Despite current low level unemployment, the lack of immigrants means that the government is obviously worried about running short of workers to keep up the economic impetus in the next few years. Picture: AFP

There is a word that has been thrown around lately; it is pivot — to pivot is to turn around on the same spot and there are events in the history of nations that are true pivotal points. This time of pandemic is one. The subject of how the culture of Australia will change, or not, increasingly preoccupies us.

Will the current “golden cage” or siege mentality cause us to change from being an expanding outward looking nation to an inward looking small rich country, as we once were, “on the edge of the world”? That is a distinct possibility. This pandemic might create more long-term effects than any economists can see in their small crystal balls.

“Fortress Australia” as a strategy to combat the virus, has had widespread support because it worked, but has caused some short-term behavioural changes and some longer term uncertainties about our social makeup.

In the short term, despite being a compliant population, a sizeable number of Australians are making up their own minds about vaccination because we feel we are “sitting pretty”. This slow take up of vaccines and some people not wanting to be vaccinated at all, especially with AstraZeneca’s vaccine, is the primary immediate example of how the fortress mentality has affected behaviour. But there are wider changes that might affect our long-term future and view of ourselves.

Take another example: immigration. We have had no immigration for the past year. There are a few conservatives who for a host of reasons would like a smaller population and, as a consequence, don’t like immigration.

The latest employment figures combined with an optimistic economic outlook of recovery has buoyed the anti-immigration stance. However, the effects of almost nil immigration will not be felt in the economy for at least another year, hence the government spending now to stimulate the economy until we can open up.

By that time, the housing industry and infrastructure might be the primary economic casualties, but other more serious problems will arise for the social fabric if immigration slows too rapidly.

Our most pressing problem is that we cannot reproduce ourselves, so there is no doubt that we need immigration, especially of the young, to support the old. Our present total fertility rate has fallen to near Great Depression levels, at just under 1.6 and cannot sustain our economy. We simply need a good ratio of working young to dependent old.

It is true immigration cannot completely fix this problem because immigrants don’t have any more children than the native-born. Also, because immigrants arrive at the most productive time of their lives the ageing of the population can actually speed up. That is why encouraging the young and single, who will put down roots in Australia, works. Even if to begin with they were international students or backpackers, if they stay permanently, they cannot help but contribute.

Nevertheless, despite current low level unemployment, the lack of immigrants means that the government is obviously worried about running short of workers to keep up the economic impetus in the next few years.

One solution is to lure more women of child-bearing age into the workforce, which is the rationale behind the increases in childcare support. However, there are major problems with this sort of thinking. Firstly, Australian women are very resistant to full-time work with young children as we have very good access to part time work. Consequently, according to Professor Peter McDonald, in the last census of women in the 30 to 34 age group, the percentage returning to full-time work after one child dropped to less than 30 per cent, after a second it was barely 20 per cent. After three children, which is the ideal for maintaining population ratio at a level pace, less than 15 per cent worked full-time.

Encouraging more young mothers into full-time work will probably depress the birthrate. However, the government knows in a time of pandemic families are less likely to have more children anyway. Consequently, instead of backing families with higher neutral allowances or a fairer tax spread for dependent children, the short-term solution is to get more women into the workforce earlier and longer, even if this means they have fewer children.

This is short sighted. It doesn’t take into account the families who do have more children and whose mothers will only return to full-time work when their children are out of infancy and do not need long day care. In fact, recently the biggest rise in demand for care is not long day care it is after school care. A better investment is real preschool instead of the industry driven “education and care” mantra, which provides neither.

All this means Australia post-pandemic, will change. We could become smaller, more monocultural, and more resilient to change, or we could become bigger, more open and interestingly more decentralised, because one other effect this pandemic has had on families is that we have rediscovered the true value of space. Combined with working remotely, there has been a small but significant upsurge in internal migration for the good of family life. Now that is a cultural change — for the better.