Comment Recession or depression still leads to a grim Xmas The Byron Shire Echo Volume 35 #07 • July 29, 2020
Road funding announcement turns ĶŕƐş ë żşōĶƐĶĈëō ĎƖŔżƆƐĕſ Ǖ ſĕ
Nationals MLC Ben Franklin
Greens Mayor Simon Richardson
Local Greens MP Tamara Smith
There was a terrific announcement of $2.28 million in road funding for some of Byron’s worst roads by two odd bedfellows last week – the non-elected local Nationals representative and the Greens mayor. It was odd because the elected local NSW Greens MP, Tamara Smith, wasn’t invited to join the celebrations. Nor was she mentioned by either of them as they gushed over each other on location in Tyagarah. We’ll get to that later. The Council press release reads, ‘Grays Lane will now be sealed to the boundary of the Tyagarah Nature Reserve and raised to reduce flooding. A 700m section of Seven Mile Beach Road at Broken Head will also be sealed from the Broken Head Reserve Road intersection to the Kings Beach carpark’. Wahoo! Yet what wasn’t mentioned was that this funding appears tied exclusively to plans of management (PoMs) for these areas. They were quietly adopted by NSW Parks and Wildlife late last year. PoMs are handy documents because they provide the go ahead to increase tourism and development, for example. A Council staff member took the rap for not inviting Ms Smith to the announcement, despite Ms Smith providing Council a PR comment and ‘supporting the government at the request of Council for the funding’. There is yet to be reply from the mayor as to whether he apologised to his Greens counterpart for the lack of an invitation. What is confusing, dear reader, is that the Greens mayor isn’t particularly aligned with the values of the NSW or federal Greens. That’s created conflict within the local Greens Party. Instead, he appears right at home with the ideals of the National Party. The Echo asked Mr Franklin if he had ever invited Tamara Smith to a funding announcement. He replied, ‘It is appropriate that significant government funding is announced by a member of the government. She has other funds over which she has discretion – like the Community Building Partnerships Program for example – which it is appropriate for her to announce’. Meanwhile Ms Smith told The Echo, ‘In the 16 years my Nationals predecessor [Don Page] was in opposition, he was invited by the then Labor government to attend state funding announcements. Maybe it’s misogyny?’ From Franklin’s reply, it appears his strategy at the next state election (he failed at the last one in 2019) will include bombarding the public with a narrative that the Greens were never elected. While it seems to lack grace, it fits perfectly with the continual erosion of political discourse, which leads to nowhere good. We want good, right? Hans Lovejoy, editor
W
e would never dream of accusing Scott Morrison of being relieved by the onset of the second wave of COVID-19, but nonetheless it has postponed a nagging problem for him. It has been clear for weeks that the stimulus measures implemented by the government could not simply be shut off. This was the original idea, but circumstances – and mainly pressure from just about all the stakeholders – made it impossible. However the manner and extent of the maintenance of JobKeeper and JobSeeker in particular has developed into a brawl over all fronts: economic, medical and political. And as Treasurer Josh Frydenberg faced his self-imposed deadline last week, the prospects were not propitious. But then COVID-19 came galloping back, rampant in Victoria, and then crossing the Murray into New South Wales. And there were ominous signs of resurgence in the other states and territories. So extending and rejigging the handouts became a no-brainer. Kicking the can down the street, maybe? Sooner or later a real decision will have to be made, but the later the better – there will be plenty of time to prepare the voters for the inevitable, and it is more than likely that there will be other distractions to divert their attention when it happens. And for the moment, the money will keep flowing. Once again, the spin doctors revised the original schedule. The idea was to make it all part of an economic update – but not, Frydenberg insisted, a mini-budget – on Thursday. But given the numbers on debt, deficit, unemployment and general misery were not promising, it was broken into the good news – to be delivered by Morrison on Tuesday and assiduously leaked to the morning papers before then – and the bad news, the grim statistics were left for Frydenberg on Thursday; a traditional day of mourning. Actually, some were not as grim as we had feared from Frydenberg’s diligent softening up process. Last financial year’s deficit may indeed look eyewatering, but it is not unprecedented – we only go back 70 years, a mere biblical lifetime. But then, next year’s deficit is predicted to more than double, so the records will keep tumbling. Debt will also continue to soar. However, given that it was soaring anyway
over the first seven years of the coalition, we can regard that as business as usual. And just about all the economic indicators are on the downward slope, no surprises there.
As JobKeeper tapers şǓ ëŕĎ ćĕĈşŔĕƆ IJëſĎĕſ Ɛş ëĈĈĕƆƆǼ ƐIJĕ ŕƖŔćĕſƆ ƱĶōō ſĶƆĕ Ɛş Ʊĕōō şưĕſ şŕĕ ŔĶōōĶşŕ ŇşćōĕƆƆ ŕĕƶƐ Ʒĕëſȁ Mungo MacCallum But the crusher – the figure that drops the cess into recession – is unemployment. And that’s where the real uncertainty is festering. The headline figure is Treasury’s estimate of 9.25 per cent in the December quarter, but even the most credulous of the Pollyannas know that it is really much higher than that. The realists are saying 15 per cent out of work and that, crucially, it will get worse – much worse – before it gets better. As JobKeeper tapers off and becomes harder to access, the numbers will rise to well over one million jobless next year, and the prediction of zero net wage growth will not help. The more pedantic economists are already saying that this is not recession – it is full-on depression, and they don’t just mean the mental angst of isolation and social distancing. And even the ever sanguine ScoMo was stretching for ebullience in the manner of a drowning man grasping at straws. JobKeeker will be maintained for at least eight months, which should keep employers, if not actually happy, at least placated. But it will need to be reassessed, and the rates will taper off over time. Any serious hope that it will trigger an investment boom is clearly fanciful. And there is an expectation that a large majority of the nearly five million workers currently on the list will be removed from it. But unfortunately that does not mean that they will all be back in productive jobs. We don’t know how many companies will close, but the likelihood is quite a few – bankruptcies, which had stalled, will resume with renewed momentum. As a result, a lot of the employees propped up by JobKeeper, will lose
their jobs altogether and move seamlessly over to JobSeeker – and the unemployment queue. And although JobSeeker will be above the abject poverty line of NewStart, it will still mean a large step down, not only in actual income but in self-belief – the confidence that is essential to power any putative recovery. JobSeeker, at the propped up rate, is scheduled to close with the calendar year, and although Morrison says he is leaning towards some kind of replacement, it is unlikely to be a cause for celebration. The current regime will end as soon as the Christmas decorations have been repacked, and even before then, the times will be tougher. The gratuitous cruelty of mutual obligation, forcing victims to spend their meagre dole payments chasing non-existent job vacancies, is to be inflicted anew. If there is to be welfare, there must also be punishment – well, for the poor and the powerless. Morrison and his fellow politicians will happily absent themselves from their own well-paid jobs – attending parliament is too risky, too difficult. But of course, we are all in this together. So where will it all end? Obviously, none of us knows, and somewhat alarmingly there are signs that the government is preparing to acknowledge this and simply give up the battle. The talk last week was all about learning to live with the pandemic – even with a vaccine – the virus cannot be eliminated, outbreaks will recur. And that being the case, we might as well stop struggling and resume the faltering economic model we were muddling through a year ago. Morrison is having one more go at prevarication. But after JobKeeper officially shuts down in March, it may be simpler to go straight to capitulation. And even if COVID-19 can be brought under control, it is a safe bet that in the near future another virus will emerge, another infection will invade our seagirt borders, and the whole process will start again… or perhaps not; maybe next time we will cut straight to the chase and save the money. We could go back to traditional coalition values: looking after mates, bashing unions, states and media, and fantasising about delivering a budget surplus. Now that would really be back to normal.
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`ƖōƷ ǩǰǽ ǩǧǩǧ The Byron Shire Echo 9