Priority in this pandemic must be solving people’s problems, pontificating on politics and profits must be postponed
The current crisis has fully disclosed the inability of the Coalition government, led by Scott Morrison, to understand how to develop adequate policies.
This comes as no surprise, when the only policy on the table before the last election was a tax cut to benefit those in least need of help!
Through government actions, millions of people are out of work, and this means the government must take responsibility for those whose livelihoods have been destroyed.
Victoria has provided a very clear explanation as to why that policy was well-founded.
Morrison and Frydenberg are probably still licking the wounds inflicted by their being denied the long promised surplus – in itself an inappropriate and unnecessary goal – but then, they have been besotted with the financial side of government, without fully understanding what the purpose of government is.
The end of 2019 saw the start of unprecedented bush fires in Australia. Many lives were lost and many who lost their homes are still homeless.
In America’s west, whole towns are disappearing in flames.
The world faces two existential crises.
Global warming and the COVID-19 pandemic.
If the world is facing disaster, surely the least we can do is try to help people keep – or get! – a roof over their heads, be able to feed the family and at least try to weather the storm without being held back by a government trying to balance the budget?
We MUST force the government to the realisation that accruing national debt now, and saving lives in the process, is the moral path to take.
And we help the economy have a better chance of recovery if people here and now have enough money in their pockets to pay the rent or mortgage, put food on the table and maintain an acceptable standard of life.
The fact that CEOs are still being paid bonuses, and shareholders, some already very wealthy, are receiving dividends, while people are living on the streets and dependent on charities for a meal means, that there is something very wrong in the system the government is operating.
There are no cheap, quick and easy solutions to current problems but the highest priority is enabling people to live in a condition well removed from dire poverty.
And when it comes to the suffering of our elderly and the grief of their families who see loved lives fore-shortened – the government has a moral debt to which it must give priority.
I end as always – this is my 2020 New Year Resolution:
“I will do everything in my power to enable Australia to be restored to responsible government.”
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paul walter
Return to home pageToo true, Rosemary.
And more besides. Fiscal stimulus is as necessary now as it was in 2009 and in the 1930’s, when its non-application in favour of brutal austerity ruined millions of lives.
The responses to the bushfires were myopic and typically mean spirited as well as deriving of previous environmentally hostile policies ennacted.
A slight quibble- job losses through Covid lockdowns were inevitable. Where the government has been at fault is in its misuse of its powers to divert funding away from relief of those most in need in favour of schemes that represent clear rorting opportunities for itself and its fellow travellers to do with employment and employment infrastructures, nursing homes, and so forth.
As for global warming, the factors involved take on a myriad of faces, from corrupt water policy and land clearing to the further encouragement of expensive and destructive fossil fuels TNC’s and an industry that clearly gains its massive profits through rent=seeking subsidies, monopolies and price gouging.
We live in reactionary modernist- neo fascist- times as escapist arrogant and greedy cranks rule once civilised nations across the globe.