ALP breaks ranks: ‘we must go harder’ on coronavirus

Labor has broken from its bipartisan approach to the coronavirus pandemic, rejecting Scott Morrison’s strategy.

Anthony Albanese speaks to the media in Sydney on Wednesday. Picture: AAP

Labor has broken from its bipartisan approach to the coronavirus pandemic, rejecting Scott Morrison’s strategy by calling for stricter immediate shutdowns, a fast-tracked third stimulus, bigger wage subsidies and a more expansive social welfare system.

Anthony Albanese hit out at the Prime Minister’s handling of the crisis and called for the immediat­e announcement of long-term shutdown of businesses rather than incremental updates.

Opposition Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers called for the fast-tracking of a third stimulus package, while health spokesman Chris Bowen rejected the need to balance health concerns against economic issues.

“I see people saying, well, the government’s got to balance the economy against health,” Mr Bowen said. “No. I completely rejec­t that. The best economic plan for the country is to beat this virus quickly. That’s the best stimulus.”

Declaring there was a strong argument for an immediate stage-three shutdown, which would close schools, the Opposition Leader blamed the government’s messaging and “new announcements every single day” for panic buying.

“I absolutely support stricter shutdowns and clear messages about them and a timetable on when things occur,” Mr Albanese said. “The government at the moment­ is making new announcem­ents every day. That is no good for business, that is no good for certainty, that is no good for giving confidence in the community that those in authority know what they are doing.

“That’s why people are out there making the sort of purchases that we’ve seen, be it toilet paper, pasta, other essentials.”

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said the push to close schools came from a “school of thought” that was not shared by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee.

“What is at dispute is essent­ially two schools of thought,’’ Profes­sor Kelly said. “One is go hard and go fast. And the other one is about scalable proportional respons­e. I’m a scalable propor­tional responder.”

In an interview with The Australian, Dr Chalmers said the government­ needed to quickly prepare another stimulus package to stem large-scale job losses.

“It is abundantly clear that the government has not done anywhere near enough to prevent large-scale job losses and business closures,” he said.

“The government itself has conceded more will be necessary, so there is little point in them continuing to drag their feet. The government­ needs to urgently consider decisive steps taken around the world to subsidise wages efficiently so that employers are encouraged to keep their workers rather than let them go.”

He also called on the government to expand social welfare assistanc­e payments to give more people help during the crisis.

“Clearly in a crisis of this magnitude the government needs to consider how to make the safety net wider, stronger and more substanti­al for more Australians doing it tough,” Dr Chalmers said.

Stephen Jones, Labor’s financial services spokes­man, slammed the government’s plan to allow the early access of superannuation of up to $20,000 over two years.