Charles Gutjahr

Welcome to April, the month when most of the first Australian Government stimulus package is rolling out.

It is interesting how things have changed in three weeks since that was announced. Back then the Government was still in politicking mode: saying things like "we will not be pursuing a cash splash in the reckless Rudd-Gillard fashion", and setting up stimulus that was mainly delayed until April — which seemed suspiciously like an economic gerrymander. Packing all the economic damage from the bushfires into the first quarter and pushing most of the stimulus into the second quarter looked more like a plan to avoid the political embarrassment of a technical recession than exemplary economic management.

Fortunately now I reckon the Government has switched their focus away from the politics and more towards finding the best response to the crisis. We've had two more stimulus packages since, each bigger and more immediate. By the third stimulus on Monday the newly announced JobKeeper payment started that day — which is even before many of the measures from the first stimulus had started.

This is good! It's amazing how in just three weeks we can go from prioritising politics to prioritising getting the job done. It gives me hope that Australia will come out of this pandemic as well as possible.

From The Guardian: Australian government won't 'jump to a solution' to help casual workers in coronavirus crisis

Sounds like our government doesn't want to support casual workers and business owners who can't afford to stay home when they get sick with the COVID-19 coronavirus. Reminds me of their bushfire response: instead of spending money up front to mitigate a crisis they'll let it get worse in the hope that might save some money.

Well I reckon we'd be better off spending money now to save some lives instead.