The economy is suffering because of closed borders. To allow students and migrants to come back in – let alone tourists – we need new measures to speed up what is turning into an embarrassment for the government. The censure from the right must be the thing that is most painful for Morrison and Frydenberg, Dutton and Hunt, because it means that their traditional friends are getting tired of typical Liberal do-in-on-the-cheap measures. This kind of approach has seen the use of hotels for quarantine instead of special fit-for-purpose bases out in regional areas. Labor wouldn’t have let things get this bad, and would have done what they normally do – spend money – in order to open up a vicious bottleneck.
The vaccination delay is bad enough without also having to shut down flights from overseas that universities and landlords – many of whom have seen rents collapse due to low demand in the property market – wish would resume. Many businesses that usually benefit from the economic activity that these cohorts bring will also be hoping for new measures that must be brought in independent of the Budget.
If the Treasurer wants to reduce unemployment he must do as much as possible to make sure that more flights bringing more people from overseas are allowed to enter the country. Shutting down the borders makes sense to a certain extent – and that phase of our journey has passed now – because in order to turbo charge the economy you need more money flowing through bank accounts and over the counters of businesses in the major cities.
Using GPs to vaccinate the population is also a typical Liberal thing to do, as it leverages an existing resource to do something novel and important. Labor would have moved far quicker to introduce purpose-built centres designed to vaccinate more people. But Labor is not in power. What the Liberals CAN do however is take a leaf out of the ALP’s playbook and start making more announcements designed to get the punters on-side. The past few months have been terrible for the Libs (even though Labor has failed to capitalise on their discomfort) so they should be looking for any available means to reverse the slide in the popularity stakes.
Special quarantine centres located in regional areas would be a good way to bring rural Australia on-side as well, as servicing such installations would help to bolster remote economies. Some such places already exist, and more can be built with limited funding, ensuring that a visible antidote to the opinion polls would survive into the next election cycle. If the LNP wants to survive this crisis, it needs to do more than just give money to mums. It needs to spend money on measure specifically designed to bring about a new reality on the border front. Open the borders as soon as possible, and win the election that’s coming up fast.
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