During the election campaign, COVID-19 was a positive issue for Anthony Albanese. He’d successfully framed Scott Morrison as a failure on the pandemic, with plenty of help from Morrison himself. According to Albanese (himself laid low by COVID during the campaign), Labor believed the pandemic wasn’t over and would take it more seriously than Morrison, who seemed anxious to move on and return to normal.
And to be fair, Albanese initially lived up to that belief. In June, he extended COVID funding to the states and territories to the end of the year, at a cost of three-quarters of a billion dollars. For under-siege state health systems, it was a crucial step as influenza returned with a vengeance and COVID surged. Extending the second booster shot to over-30s was also an important step.
Now, however, he’s letting short-term fiscal objectives get in the way of longer-term economic goals. Not on the much-criticised decision to end RAT subsidies, which was perfectly sensible, but on the cessation of the $750 Pandemic Leave Disaster Payment at the end of the financial year.
At a time of surging infections, thousands of people now face either losing incoming or the invidious choice after contracting COVID of continuing to work despite isolation requirements. For people without sick leave — increasingly common in a more precarious employment market — it’s a real blow. It suggests a “pandemic is over” mindset.
And the argument that it was a decision of the former government simply doesn’t wash. So what? They got voted out in May, didn’t they?
The imperative to get the budget deficit down is understandable. Fortunately, the government will benefit from higher company tax revenue from fossil fuel exports (mainly coal, rather than gas, which large companies like Woodside, Santos and Origin can export while paying little in the way of tax). After years of the Coalition getting — to use a memorable Labor phrase — hit in the arse by a rainbow on tax revenue, it’s Labor’s turn. And cuts to the more egregiously wasteful Coalition programs will deliver some savings.
But Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher are playing their standard post-election “we inherited a mess and we need to take tough decisions” hand for all its worth, conscious not merely that they only have a limited political window to do so, but that the Reserve Bank will take the level of fiscal stimulus into account in its decisions about interest rate hikes. A significantly lower deficit will help convince the RBA to stay its hand at a lower level than otherwise.
But the penny-wise, pound-foolish aspect is that ceasing the disaster payment means more workers will soldier on with COVID, spreading it more rapidly and taking out colleagues, adding to worker shortages, especially in frontline industries where people don’t have the benefit of working from home. This is one spending cut that may add to inflation, not curb it.
“The pandemic isn’t over” can’t merely be a piece of rhetoric. It has fiscal consequences — painful ones for those who want to get the deficit down as quickly as possible. The national cabinet meeting on Monday to reconsider the issue is an opportunity for the government to backflip. With hospitalisations rising and new subvariants circulating, Albanese, Chalmers and Gallagher will have to wear the painful fiscal impacts for a while yet.
If we can’t afford to support people on casual employment, why are we still gifting all the wealth from our natural resources to the multinationals? Not only most of them haven’t paid tax in the past decade, but we also subsidise them! And Labor say they will not ask for any dividend from the super profits they are currently making. Which only confirms that Labor and the LNP are two sides of the same coin and neither side has the intellectual capacity or integrity to move this country forward.
What I would like to know is are these contracts indefinite? Do they get renegotiated or are we destined to remain a mediocre country until our riches run out? What will protect us from such contracts in the future? Will we also give away our renewable ‘superpower’ capacities to these same companies? (Powershop has already been bought by Shell). I just despair…
Well said.
Exactly. And the poorest will get slammed by the soaring power and gas bills the hardest, which feeds into further inflation leading to more interest rate increases, which hurts the poorest and marginal middle classes the most. Gas companies are making out like bandits and the Commonwealth wont entertain domestic reservation or an export levy.
But Albo, tell us again how you lived in public housing growing up.
What does that have to do with anything, the point is this covid leave pay is a hoax based on nothing but fake tests – the same casual workers get no leave pay for anything else, why one thing that does not diagnose illness.
If the problem is the trillion dollar debt, as the government claims, they have some easy options on tax to deal with it. Firstly, scrap the so-called stage 3 tax cuts. They are clearly not affordable and they are yet to begin. Easy long term reduction in the budget deficit. Secondly, introduce a windfall profit tax on miners and exporters of minerals and LNG. If Boris Johnson can do it, its hardly a radical, lefty measure.
The problem is the proliferation of ‘casual’ employment.
Which, by rights, Labor should have a hate-on for, but Albo smells pretty damn neoliberal for a bloke raised in a housing commission by a single mum…
You’d have to be pretty keen to put the casualisation genie back in the bottle, but the only thing Labor seems keen on is disappointing lefties.
He’s doing a cracking job on that though.
If not its raison d’etre, certainly S.O.P.
Often seemingly going out of its way and that extra mile to be Lib-lite, just to toady up to Moloch.
What happens when casual workers without sick leave fall down the steps or get flu or food poisoning etc? Why is Covid special? Is it only because going back to work endangers others? So no sympathy per se for the welfare of the suffering worker?
Very Very bad optics for a new PM. Sure he’s got a massive budget hole to fix, but he has a little wriggle room. In the election build-up they said it would get worse before it would get better. Sticking with the withdrawal of payments based on the prediction of “Covid Over” is a bit tough when it is clear the outbreak now is very much worse than all previous ones. Maybe not in terms of deaths, but certainly in terms of damage to productivity, services, and host of other essential KPIs.
If Labor want to be taken seriously with respect to fixing that budget hole, then they should move quickly to cancel the Stage 3 tax cuts.
then they should move quickly to cancel the Stage 3 tax cuts.
The stage 3 tax cuts do not take effect until 2024. Rushing to reverse them in the next 5 minutes is not going to make any difference to present problems.
Maybe a small increase for the well off & negative gearing needs another look at – it’s way over lubricated.
I suspect most are the people don’t wear masks, don’t vaccinate to the max, don’t distance, don’t practice hygiene, and yes I can say that given what I have experienced and observed personally.
Visited both of the duopoly outlets yesterday and, despite the usual bustle of pension day patrons, masks were few & far between.
NONE of the staff were masked in either, even those in the deli with exposed food intended to be eaten uncooked – cheese, salad etc – nor the checkout staff.
A downvote?
Some strange people here.
It sounds like survival of the smartest at work. The ones who think that they are the fittest may be at risk of long COVID’s revenge.
Sorry, but if those self same casual workers get any other way worse disease they would get no extra pay or sick leave due to leave loading on casual pay. Have all of you hysterical people lost your minds.
“And the argument that it was a decision of the former government simply doesn’t wash.”
It’s truly bizarre to see Albanese and his ministers trying this on. One ofthe fundamentals of this system of government is that no government can tie the hands of a future government. The policies of, and the decisions by, one government have no power over the next. Any of the laws passed by one government can be amended, revoked or replaced by any future government. Albanese’s decision to do nothing about the arrangements made by the last government is just that – it is his decision. Either he has no idea at all what it means to be in government or this is what he wants to do. Shame on him for trying to hide behind Morrison. Anyway, he owns it, he is responsible for it and the consequences, for good or ill, can and will be chalked up to him.