It has only taken a week for the simple beauty of JobKeepers to become a little tarnished.
Some employers and unions are squabbling over how, or even if, the $1500 a fortnight to the 6 million workers affected should be delivered.
And those who have missed out are complaining more loudly about being dudded. They include some million casual workers without a year’s continuous tenure, about the same number of migrant workers on temporary visas, a swathe of foreign students and virtually the entire arts community.
On top of that, the aviation industry has got in for its chop and the universities are only the most aggressive groups demanding subsidies of their own. Be in it, mate.
And on the other side, some of the country’s lowest-paid will receive an unexpected and unearned pay rise – a free gift from a government not known for disbursing welfare. This has produced howls of outrage from the envious rich who want their own handouts indexed in proportion to their previous salaries. Grumbling all around. even without the impasse over the schools — which should open, and when and by how much.
It should be emphasized immediately that JobKeepers is overwhelmingly good policy. Sure, it was conceived in haste and birthed before its bureaucratic midwives were entirely ready for it, but the glitches can be fixed.
However, they will not be cheap, and nor, of course, is the original package. So it is fair to ask just how the cost-benefit analysis will deal with the horrendous expense: will it be worth it?
As the name implies, it is primarily about keeping jobs – keeping the dole queues as short as possible, And last week we got a guesstimate from Treasury about the potential numbers involved.
The bean counters modelled the most likely outcome as unemployment rising by some 700,000 workers, with the rate rising to 10 per cent. by the end of May A pretty grim prediction – but it could have been a lot worse. Without JobKeepers it would have been 15 per cent, nudging into serious depression territory. In other words, JobKeepers will save about another 700,000 jobs
And with the total expenditure at $130 billion, with almost certainly more to come, this works out at the privileged price of a bit under $200,000 per job.
Of course, it is not as simple as that – JobKeepers will have numerous side benefits as well. It may keep sections of the economy breathing during its indefinite period of hibernation, at least until the rainbow gold of Snapback miraculously emerges from the darkness, And it should help in instilling a modicum of confidence to both business and consumers desperate for reassurance that the government is actually doing something.
And it would appear that saving jobs is still cheaper than saving lives. – just. Last year Treasury calculated the cost of a life at $213,000. Obviously all that really demonstrates is that you can prove anything with statistics. But those are the Treasury numbers, and they are the best we are likely to get.
And they may well add to the debate about just how you can compare lives – are they all sacrosanct, all of equal worth? The question has now moved out of the metaphysical and into the economic.
On that level, there can be no real argument. I am 78 and in poor health – I have only a short time left and even that will be limited in productivity and achievement. My grandchildren are flourishing teenagers with many worthwhile decades ahead of them.
Obviously, if I was faced with an irrevocable choice over which of us would survive and which would perish, it would be a no-brainer and I would not hesitate to step aside as gracefully as possible.
But – and it is a non-negotiable but – I would want it to be my decision, not that off the government or any of its agencies. Life and death decisions must be personal ones, without either permission or refusal from the state.
This has always been the case over issues the politicians and theologians describe as matters of conscience, Abortion is a matter for the women concerned, not for a cleric or parliamentarian. The same applies to euthanasia or any other form of voluntary suicide.
And for this reason, I have been a lifelong opponent of capital punishment and a pacifist, although I admit that the latter stance can not always be a practical option. When some bastard is kicking you to death it can be hard not to resist.
But with any luck the dreadful of options of whom to triage into the ventilators and who into the grave will not confront us. Through a combination of good management, good discipline and, it should be admitted, good luck, COVID-19 appears to be coming under control, so much so that Scott Morrison is foreshadowing a relaxation of some restrictions for some people in some places.
The idea seems to be that in another week or so the trend will be solid enough to be declared definite. Then, for the next three weeks, the emphasis will be on making sure that the most important tools, testing and tracing, can be consolidated. And this, controversially, may be contingent on at least 40 percent of Australians embracing new technology to tell the authorities which contacts they have had which have led to infection from the virus.
The final, crucial step is that when the outbreaks have been detected, they must be controlled. We have had considerable success at that; it is now a matter of hanging on, at least with the prospect of a silver lining glimmering on the horizon
And if everything works, we can start the long process of supercharging the economy – an ambitious aim given that Australia’s growth rate has been stagnant for at least the last five years, and without the prospect of an indefinite global recession
And importantly, we can start with a limited resumption of parliament. Some may not regard that as much to look forward to, but they should. If ever there was signal that the panic is over and we are attempting to get back to normal, that will be the best indication that the government is fair dinkum.
Mungo MacCallum is a former senior correspondent in the Canberra Press Gallery.
Mungo MacCallum is a veteran political journalist and commentator. His books include Run Johnny Run, Poll Dancing, and Punch and Judy.
mungomccallum@staging-johnmenadue.kinsta.cloud
Comments
13 responses to “MUNGO MACCALLUM. The Cost of a Job.”
“No one else should decide whether you live or die. Therefore abortion must be legal.”
Congratulations, Mungo, you’ve distilled the reductio ad absurdum of the “Pro-Choice” position, in all its ethical glory.
That one should go on a T-shirt.
What I’m waiting for now that the ‘Rona appears to have had/is having less impact than in other places is Terry McCran and the rest of the Murdoch usual suspects rewriting history in that “what was that all about, why the colossal spend?” hindsight way. They won’t of course have the ammunition of pink batts and school halls but they should be able to do something with the egregious missteps of the Ruby Princess and that “see yez all at the footy tomorra!” stuff. Kick this mob out!! I don’t think.
Governments around the world have been reluctant to embrace a UBI – but any occamist would agree that it is the simplest most elegant solution; reduces pressure on the bureaucracy and the tax system will claw back any over payments. Would we all become lotus eaters? Some would but for most people a UBI will provide the safety net for building a rewarding life.
As for death – I am with Mungo here – I have told my relatives that I do not wish to be resuscitated. I would like to think I have a further 20 or so years of productive life ahead but if I go sooner that too is fine.
Hey John, I bet you don’t get Dave Allen to second that UBI suggestion. I think that he’s more likely into cattle prods and you really can’t blame him. The rural working class that he describes has always appeared bovine to me voting, as invariably do, for their local grandees. The further out the postcode, the lower the IQ or so they say.
Job Keeper is destined to provide opportunity for greedy and immoral employers. Imagine a shop owned by a person or persons, not unlikely recent migrants, that has depended on family members providing assistance at certain times and hours. The shop owner can now claim them as fulltime workers who have worked over twelve months. Further, the likelihood is that the family member, particularly if a minor, is unlikely to see the payment which will go into the pocket of the shop keeper.
I am still waiting for a plausible explanation as to why it was necessary to close parliament until August when the epidemic was smaller here than in every other like country that didn’t see the need to close its parliament..do people even begin to understand how potentially dangerous that is?
The major issue particularly in rural Australia Centrelink took over a long time ago providing sustanance to people to live, and took away the initiative to try and make yourself a job, or attempt to manufacture or grow something and sell the products/produce to pay their own way.
The IMF has stated that Australia is likely to fair the worst coming out of this pandemic. It is easy to see why it will be. Australia became a plastic and coffee shop economy. Our leadership and management at every level has been poor to appalling and weak with spines of gelatine. Political parties have one done what they needed to do that was populist to get themselves reelected, not what the country needed for ongoing prosperity.
The decline in rural Australia will continue and unemployment will keep rising. Rural communities have the assets, resources and people to get themselves out of their mire. Sadly rural communities have no visionary leadership and there is no need as Centrelink is looking after everybody. Rural communities in the main have become lazy and idle and do nothing to improve their community or prosperity. Community owned cooperatives should be more relevant now than ever, and should have been this past ten years in particular. However to my knowledge there are now hardly any.
JobKeeper payments in many rural areas will be relatively low in numbers. Overall in rural communities not a lot will change as those that are working are still producing food essential to keep the nation fed. For example in our town there is very little other than coffee shops, hotels and restaurants that are closed – some appear to be doing good business in take away and alcohol sales.
In a civilised and democratic society it is abhorrent that even the thought of making a choice between who lives and dies is based on economic worth. This is the thinking that prevailed in concentration camps where some arbitrary decision maker directed individuals to the right or left line. Such thinking flies in the face of basic human rights.
The only choice must be how to best utilise available resources to the most urgent cases. No argument, end of story and no quibbling about one person’s worth over another on age or any other basis. We leave those decisions to a higher being. Individuals have the right to deny treatment and that should also be respected.
We’ve gone beyond leaving our elderly and sick in the woods to be torn apart by wild animals!
Are jobs really being kept if the day the subsidy expires so will the job in many cases pending the economy’s slog to pre-existing health? Isn’t the whole aim of the JobKeeper volte-face to keep the statistics looking better than they are? After all, the JobSeekers, even the ones who arguably should be JobKeepers, are still expected to apply for four non-existent jobs a month. Are we reduced to Keeping up Appearances?
NO, the jobs in a substantial number of cases will not be kept. You are correct in saying it is to make the numbers look good. The JobKeeper and the way it is being implemented is going to end up being a disaster. Can you imagine the fraud that is going to occur for a start. The other issue is the money is going to take too long to get to the recipients that desperatly need the cash due to the incredible number of applications.
Currently nobody is talking about after JobKeeper and the doubling dole payments. Twenty percent of mortgages were already in stress prior to this and too many people living daytoday requiring two incomes to keep their heads above water. What the hell is going to happen after JobKeeper as the government cannot go on borrowing money. The Australia of tomorrow is a totally different Australia of 2019 – and will be for a long time. Sadly our biggest issue at all levels of government Federal, State and Local Government is lack of visionary decisive touch leadership to do what needs to be done. Weakness is going to prevent Australia having a faster recovery.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-19/grattan-report-on-coronavirus-unemployment-projections/12161328
Quote: Second round of job losses likely to be worse
The report only looked at jobs lost due to the mandated shutdowns and physical distancing rules.
Mr Coates warned the economic prospects were likely to get worse.
“While there’s a lot that’s uncertain, you would expect that the second-round impacts are going to be very severe,” he said
You write, ‘the government cannot go on borrowing money’.
There are many myths and mysteries about Federal Government debt – they are of course the ones that issue/create Australian dollars and there is no financial limit on this capacity. The ABC RN program, The Economists of Thursday 9th April was most educational and truly worth a listen – on ABC Listen app.
Mungo’s “no brainer” decision in favour of the younger generation where there is a limit on technology in times of plague can only be effective if we oldies write that into our Advance Care Directives which can operate if we are not well enough to provide such instructions. Otherwise, the State might have to impose a triage as they did in Italy. That’s the only way “life and death decisions must be personal ones, without either permission or refusal from the state,” as Mungo puts it. It’s another case of individuals taking personal responsibility for what happens to them.
The cost of a job, Italy and death must be a personal one all in one breath. The sudden demise of John Paul l automatically comes to mind.
Maybe taking on the establishment for financial transparency [still a problem] had something to do with it.
We will never truly know with that mob with their track record.