Scott Morrison, Josh Frydenberg, Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers all agree that a jump in the jobless of almost 600,000 people in April is tough, devastating, sad and a personal and economic disaster,
But there is no agreement in the role of the $130 billion JobKeeper program in keeping the new unemployment rate at 6.2 per cent — two percentage points below general market expectations.
The growing political divisions over JobKeeper have now burst through any little restraint from COVID-19 bipartisanship.
Labor has boldly declared there are hundreds of thousands of people on the unemployment queues because of a “deliberate act” of the Morrison Government and the “bungling” of the JobKeeper program.
The Prime Minister has boldly declared the JobKeeper program “incredibly effective” in keeping six million Australians connected to their jobs in 850,000 businesses.
There is no middle way, no quarter being offered and no prisoners taken in what has become the first pitched political battle of Australia’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
The two sides are clear: Labor says the Morrison Government has deliberately put people on the dole queue and bungled the implementation and extent of the $20 billion a month JobKeeper while the Coalition says the economic calamity would have been much worse without its early announcement of JobKeeper and that it provides the safety net and hope for a way out of the COVID-19 induced recession.
The Opposition Leader says Morrison has failed on the coronavirus crisis, as he “failed” on the bushfire crisis, and is only interested in “day to day politics and marketing”.
Morrison says the tough and devastating unemployment figures were expected and anticipated by JobKeeper which “is keeping people in jobs”.
Ultimately market confidence, consumer confidence, voter confidence and business confidence will determine which political narrative is accepted and deemed to have been right.
In the meantime the first harsh and raw shots in an argument that will last through to 2021 have been fired.
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