Politics with Michelle Grattan
News:Politics
When Treasurer Josh Frydenberg joined the podcast in December, the outlook was positive. While the forecast deficit was massive at nearly $200 billion, it had been revised down and the prospects for growth and employment revised up.
Frydenberg said then: "Australians go into Christmas with real cause for optimism and hope".
But the economic climate now is bleaker. And very uncertain.
With the September quarter set to be negative, and the December quarter dependent on New South Wales' ability to get on top of the virus, a second recession can't be ruled out.
But joining The Conversation podcast this week, Frydenberg looks for some silver linings. He says a likely contraction of "about 1.5%" in the September quarter would be considerably less drastic than the 7% contraction the economy saw in the June quarter of last year.
"Consumer spending is about 30% higher today than it was in March and April last year.
"Consumer confidence, similarly, is around 30% higher than it was back then".
And the latest jobs numbers had shown that more than 200,000 people had come off unemployment benefits since that JobKeeper ended.
"So I'm confident that the underlying fundamentals of the Australian economy [are] sound."
With the New South Wales lockdown more than likely to continue into a third month and other lockdowns around the country, the government has remained steadfast in its decision to not reinstate JobKeeper, relying instead on COVID disaster payments to support workers.
A criticism levelled against the JobKeeper program was that money was wasted going to companies which ended up making profits, and then not returning the funds.
The treasurer calls JobKeeper "a remarkable success" which "restored confidence immediately after it was announced.
"If we had said at the time, you know, Grattan Enterprises would have to pay it all back if somehow they got through the crisis, the likelihood would have been that[...]some businesses wouldn't have taken that money and therefore would have let their staff go."
Once borders are open, and we are back to some sort of normality, Frydenberg looks to migration to assist in the economic recovery, and in countering "the impacts and consequences of an ageing population" outlined in this year's Intergenerational Report.
Frydenberg supports a migration programme which strikes "the right balance".
A program which "goes to our humanity with the resettlement of refugees[...]goes to the needs, the immediate needs of the economy with skilled workers, and[...] goes to the harmony of our society, with family reunions and the like."
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Statistician David Gruen and the race for real-time pandemic data
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on saving Australia’s tourism and construction industries
Jim Chalmers on JobKeeper’s flaws and the Eden-Monaro byelection
Democracy 2025 - The role of the APS in a post COVID-19 world with Michelle Grattan, Mark Evans, Peter Shergold, and Renée Leon
Paul Kelly on the risk of a COVID-19 second-wave
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Nev Power on the role of business in a post-coronavirus world
Katy Gallagher on the senate's coronavirus watchdog
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on his autobiography, ‘A Bigger Picture
MPs Tim Watts, Fiona Martin, Clare O'Neil and Helen Haines discuss serving their electorates during the coronavirus crisis
Democracy 2025 - How does Australia compare: what makes a leading democracy? With Michelle Grattan, Mark Evans and Ian Chubb
Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty on the coronavirus crisis and the timeline for a vaccine
Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy on COVID-19
Keith Pitt on the Murray-Darling Basin, the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, and Nuclear Power
Mark Butler on Labor’s 2050 carbon neutral target
Phil Honeywood on the coronavirus challenge for universities
Adam Bandt on Greens' hopes for future power sharing
Michael McCormack moves on from his near-death experience
Mathias Cormann and Jim Chalmers on the mid-year budget update
Andrew Hastie on foreign influence, security and veteran mental health
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