For all the profound — and welcome — changes on the part of government in responding to the crisis, it might be wise to resist the temptation to declare that the world has changed forever.
The overall response of the federal government — Home Affairs’ tragic Ruby Princess blunder aside — has been by and large very effective, and embraced exactly the kind of big-spending fiscal intervention that it had long attacked Labor for.
Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has gone from a pointless talkfest to an effective crisis management mechanism. Labor (unlike the Coalition in 2009) has refused to block legislation for stimulus packages. Australians have generally accepted the rationale of shutting down the economy so that lives — mainly those of older Australians — are saved.
All that, and the “all in this together” rhetoric from governments has some people suggesting a new, very different era of government and public life is upon us, that “nothing will ever be the same”, we have a contagion of compassion. A new world beckons, it seems.
But it’s always useful to be sceptical of arguments for discontinuity. Engrained patterns of behaviour, long-term social and economic forces, and self-interest have a staying power that defies change.
Take the debate over when to ease lockdown restrictions. It’s been business, some economists and sections of the right-wing media that have called for immediate easing of restrictions to support the economy.
One Financial Review journalist, citing his 68-year-old father, suggested older Australians would be happy to die in order to support the livelihoods of their kids.
At The Australian, one writer suggested we were overreacting to a rather trivial illness and we had a much greater chance of dying in a car accident (if The Australian thinks we’re overreacting to the virus, wait til it learns about the trillions of dollars spent on terrorism that have made the problem worse).
The Financial Review, which yesterday used the pandemic to call for a user-pays health system and cuts to wages and conditions of health professionals because “public health spending is no panacea” (geddit?), wants “a rising but manageable curve” of illness and death so that the economy can re-open, because “seeking to eradicate the virus” is impossible.
But that’s no more extreme than the febrile reaction from many on the left, especially on social media, who see any suggestion of easing of restrictions as the elevation of corporate profits above human life, or public health experts, who insist the population must be kept confined as long as possible regardless of economic consequences.
You don’t have to be particularly “extreme” to incur the wrath of the left.
Nine’s Chris Uhlmann was the victim of a remarkable pile-on on social media yesterday for writing a nuanced exploration of the issue of easing restrictions, that concluded with the idea that — as the threat of the virus recedes — we might leave it up to older people to decide for themselves how much social isolation they want to maintain versus quality of life and interaction with family and friends.
For that crime, Uhlmann was widely demonised as some sort of “ghoul” ready to put older Australians to the sword, along with the inevitable cries of “OK boomer”.
Torch-wielding Twitter mobs too stupid to read beyond the headlines, or the intellectual laziness of the woke left, or the venality and self-serving op-eds of the business press, are of course nothing new. That’s the point. There’s no discontinuity there. Tribalism and self-interest will bravely drive through the pandemic and emerge, a little bloodied but certainly unbowed, in the post-virus world.
That’s why News Corp continues its relentless assault on Labor, the ABC and, at the behest of Scott Morrison, the Berejiklian government.
That’s why the enemies of industry superannuation have renewed their attack on it.
That’s why rugby league, Australia’s most tone-deaf and mismanaged major sport, has deemed itself above lockdown laws and unilaterally declared it is restarting its season to earn some desperately needed cash.
That’s why interest groups are emerging day after day to demand help (today: baby boomer investors demanding that even though the economy has been halted to protect them, they still want banks to pay dividends, no matter how reckless that would be).
And, as they say in the classics, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
A post-virus world comes with a $250 billion price tag and years of even more sluggish economic growth than we had before hand.
Who pays for it? In the pre-virus world, that question would be answered by whoever had the deepest pockets to donate to political parties, run marketing campaigns and influence the media.
That’s why wealthy seniors and their fund managers have been able to stymie action to curb superannuation tax concessions, franking credits and other tax lurks for so long. That’s why many large corporations, despite some improvements in tax collection by the Abbott and Turnbull governments and the Australian Taxation Office, still get away with paying little or no tax.
Post-virus, the contest to avoid the burden of paying the hibernation bill will be on in earnest, and the same rules will apply as before: whoever wields the most influence will pay the least tax. It will be bitter and have little to do with fairness, but everything to do with power.
Right now, we’d all love to return to business-as-usual from the pre-virus world. Once it returns, we might remember the “all in it together” myth making of these months more fondly.plus ça change
How about we never pay the bill? Just keep rolling it over until $250B is so small as to be meaningless. We’ve got 5 Billion years until the sun goes nova.
This is a bit of a mish mash Bernard. I am inclined to agree with letting old people decide their own risks, but what I am concerned about is idiots like Morrison and Tehan who still think kids can’t spread the virus. They want teachers to work in conditions which would be a breach of the law everywhere else. AS to dividends, if the company is making money, it is their money and if you were a genuine part pensioner you would be singing a different song, eg my long late favourite auntie who had most of a pension plus rather modest income from Westpac and BHP (mum and dad size holding). I am very concerned about the Tony Shepherd clan though. Liars and scum. Berejiklian and Andrew have done the best job at present I think, though Andrew is beginning to suffer overreach.
Raises a couple of issues for me. Why haven’t teacher unions been more vocal about protecting their members, or have I missed something? And, I think we’re reaching the point where if journalists are wading into generation wars (selfish young people, greedy retirees etc), in the interests of transparency, they might declare their own ages.
“they still want banks to pay dividends, no matter how reckless that would be”
Ummm….. being shareholders they actually own the company, so if they want the company to pay dividends, how is anyone NOT a shareholder have a say ?
“The Financial Review, which yesterday used the pandemic to call for a user-pays health system and cuts to wages and conditions of health professionals because “public health spending is no panacea” (geddit?), wants “a rising but manageable curve” of illness and death so that the economy can re-open, because “seeking to eradicate the virus” is impossible.”
And here I thought the experience in the US shows that the user-pays health system does not work in extreme situations.
Never mind that the public health system in Australia has done most of the heavy lifting on this.
Also note that the user-pays system in the US is not very efficient and is more costly per capita than universal health care systems.
Well said Wayne !
Having recently returned from a cycling holiday in Cuba & having required excellent emergency hospital treatment in Varadero. I leave Crikey readers with this link –
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/26/world/cuba-coronavirus-medical-help-intl/index.html
Just a quickly read through the article.
Interestingly it says the centralised government is excellent for disaster relief, but bad for the economy.
It failed to mention the effect that 60 years of economic sanctions may have had on their economy.
CNN, Wayne.
Wayne this link should help in furthering your reading & critical thinking.
Even after 60 years of having to put up with the belligerence of the US and its sanctions, it offered it medical assistance after hurricane Katrina in 2005, only to have it rejected!
Look whose health system is dealing better with COVID- 19, whilst helping other countries!
https://tonyseed.wordpress.com/2019/03/02/reality-check-when-venezuela-and-cuba-offered-aid-to-the-victims-of-hurricane-katrina/
Nice one, Ian.
If ever there is a nation that punches well beyond its weight, in healthcare, it is Cuba.
They have done some very interesting things with Interferon and, early doors after the outbreak in Wuhan, were in China working with the Chinese medicos on ways to treat patients with the disease.
Dead heated for 2nd into Italy, with the Russians, trailing in the Chinese.
They also offer medical degrees to people from around the globe, including US citizens who can’t afford the tertiary fees. They offer the education for free, as long as the students commit to returning home to work in poor communities.
Public health systems deliver better care in complex cases at lower cost. Compare Australia or UK with USA. The following reference is a productivity commission report. Actual ward costs higher in public but auxiliary services e.g. x Ray much higher in private. https://theconversation.com/which-are-better-public-or-private-hospitals-54338. A later report normalised for complexity of illnesses and found that public was same cost as private taking into consideration that public hospitals deal with the more complex admissions. I have read the report but don’t have a url for it. N
Wayne, you understate. A user pays health just simply doesn’t work full stop. Also the US system not only is extremely costly, which could be justified if the health outcomes are good, but in fact their health outcomes are pretty low in OECD countries. I think their maternal deaths and neo-natal deaths are the worst of industrialised countries.
“their maternal deaths and neo-natal deaths are the worst of industrialised countries“, not to mention many developing countries.
And far worse than Cuba.
And they are one of only a few OECD countries where life expectancy is going down.
It’s easy to see which interests groups have social and political power – they’re the ones able to use this crisis to frame their ideological agenda on anticipation of the other side. What’s fair, reasonable, or right has nothing to do with it. Back to business-as-usual is the best case scenario; I can’t see any scenario where the existing inequalities aren’t exacerbated, and marginal groups won’t be scapegoats that are then squeezed.