May 26
Tuesday.
The Prime Minister did an address at the National Press Club in Canberra talking about the tough road ahead economically with a plan to stick with the National Cabinet meetings over the previous COAG meetings.
Reform to vocational education was on his mind and bringing unions to the table for industrial reform.
The Prime Minister outlined the road to recovery would be a long one taking between three to five years. The unprecedented actions of Jobkeeper and Jobseeker set in place for a financial quarter would not continue indefinitely with the PM warning “At some point you’ve got to get your economy out of ICU.”
The ABC article also editorialised “The blunt comments are expected to further dash hopes that the Government will bow to pressure and extend the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme to more workers who missed out on the $1,500 fortnightly payments.“
He also announced a new JobMaker scheme.
There was no push to have Australia turn more inward, while the Prime Minister defined us as a sovereign trading economy he sought to create an educated workforce that would mean competitive and modern manufacturing, agricultural industries while still trade of natural resources would play a big role.
“Firstly, we will remain in Australia an outward-looking, open and sovereign trading economy.
While a trading nation, we will never trade away our values or our future for short-term gain.”
These remarks were not without context, Australia did call for an independent enquiry into the source of COVID-19 in Wuhan and in the weeks since China has placed tariffs and seen a reduction in importing Australian barley and wheat.
As China has grown into the a economic powerhouse it has started flexing abroad in trade and in military excursions. No different than other superpowers before it but surely any calls that could help in combating this global pandemic should not lead to bullying tactics.
The country was up against it but Scott Morrison on the 25th of May outlined Australians were ready to get to the work of recovery.
The national leader relayed all the work that had been done to build up medical stockpiles, hospital capacity and testing numbers and contract tracing abilities.
The virus was not going anywhere and on our comparative good fortune the PM stressed, “We should not downplay this, this achievement and pretend like the risk never existed, or that our preparations or our precautions were unwarranted. Let me assure you, Australia, the risk was great and uncertain and it still is.
The fact our worst case scenarios have not been realised is cause for great relief, not apathy.”
In his speech the Prime Minister outlined more than 5 million Australians were directly benefiting from his government’s welfare measures.
That was a Labour leader in the Great Depression.”
Now here was a mainstream conservative leader steering through a once in a century health crisis, a budding trade war and a looming recession who had outspent all previous Prime Ministers.
The expense the welfare packages running long term came with a hefty price tag. Long term it was just not feasible even for the biggest bleeding hearts amongst us.
Which drove home the gravity of the situation, if Jobkeeper and Jobseeker continued for only the next quarter and the economy didn’t re-open to a certain extent by then…
Then what?
On the 2nd of June, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told us what we already knew, Australia was in a recession.
On the 26th of May however the Prime Minister was focussed on the positives. Citing that with a hopeful completion of the 3 Step Plan by mid-July for re-opening the economy across the country there would hopefully be 850,000 jobs ultimately restored.
He did acknowledge the idea of flicking a switch and turning the economy back on was simply not plausible.
This will test our confidence and our resolve.
If there was hope to be found in the speech it was when he said “We should be encouraged that we have restored jobs and rebalanced our Budget before. So Australia, we have done this before and we can do it again, together.”
“Almost 100,000 Australians have written to me in the past couple of months.
That’s incredible, our people are amazing.
And I am praying for you every day too.
-Lloyd Marken
Back to the Drawing Board Productions 
They are forecasting around 3,000,000 unemployed here by 2021. That’s without factoring in the impact of Brexit to come, and possible tax hikes to pay back the huge sums borrowed to finance the Lockdown. The economic backlash of Covid-19 is going to add salt to the wounds of the health disaster.
And it hasn’t gone away yet of course.
Best wishes, Pete.
All very true, there’s talk beginning here by raising taxes and what happens when benefits end. This was written probably more than 3 weeks ago. If you had told me I would do a post on economic matters from my Prime Minister I would have been surprised even when the COVID-19 Diary posts began. When I went through the speech there were just things I wanted to highlight and it became a whole post. Now here in Australia, our concerns are back on the virus with Victoria’s surge. The situation just constantly changes and these posts come out reflecting when they are published but when they were written. I did attend a film screening this week so I’ll write about that soon. A once in a century event doesn’t end in 3 months. It’s going to be quite a few years.
It’s vital to get the economy running again, otherwise the next wave, if there is one, will do enormous damage. I just wish selfish young people would stop doing their very best to get Covid 19 going again, with hundreds, if not thousands, at rave parties and demonstrations.
We all need to try and do our best to get through this together.