Learning From Lockdown

Like all parents of school-aged children in my state, I recently received an email from the Education Department letting me know that term two will be entirely from home.  I have often fancied the idea of homeschooling, but never imagined it would happen, and certainly not during a global pandemic.  My middle-class assumptions had us trekking around forests and museums, while my teenage daughter became a child genius, and I turned into one of those Pinterest dads making science craft out of egg cartons.

But really it has been a good opportunity to take a closer look at what she is learning in Secondary school.  The evidence shows that the school curriculum is failing our students, with a clear drop in performance over the last eighteen years.  This is demonstrated in the latest OECD Program for International Student Assessment, where Australian kids have fallen almost a full school year behind in reading and science.  They are already being a year behind in maths.  I brought this up to my daughter's teacher at the last interview and was immediately told that this testing is outdated and that children now have a greater ability to think creatively.  Well, that's fabulous — but if my daughter is to fulfil her goals of being a pilot, she'll also need to be able to read and write.  If you pick up a fourth-grade maths textbook from a hundred years ago, it would be almost tertiary level these days.

I have family and friends who are teachers ― and they are wonderful, hardworking educators, who have also upended everything and moved online for the short term.  Overall the problem lies in the National Curriculum, the latest of which was introduced in 2014, and focuses on three key areas:  disciplinary knowledge, skills and understanding;  general capabilities;  and the cross-curriculum priorities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia;  and sustainability.  This centralised curriculum is structured in such a way that these priorities are emphasised and incorporated across all subjects.  The existence of these core priorities results in less time for essential content, such as literacy and numeracy.  The recent school climate strikes show that children are learning more about one side of political activism, with a lot less critical thinking than the curriculum might suggest.  Why does the State mandate these priorities, about which parents have no choice in?

So, will this COVID-19 pandemic lead more parents to think about homeschooling?  Or at least school choice?  Before the lockdown, there were 30,000 students registered for homeschooling in Australia, with each state having their own registration.  Currently, they can choose whether to follow the national curriculum or not.  Most commonly, it is urban, secular parents disillusioned with the test-driven, one-size-fits-all model.

Compulsory government schooling began in the 1850s in Massachusetts, where an estimated 80 per cent of the population resisted, often with guns, until the final outpost surrendered their children in the 1880s ― when the area was seized by militia and the children were marched off to school under armed guard.  Harvard Law School, also in Massachusetts, will be hosting an anti-home-schooling conference in June.  One speaker, Professor James Dwyer says that "the reason parent-child relationships exist is because the State confers legal parenthood".  That gave me chills.  In Germany, homeschooling has been illegal since World War II, and parents must leave the country if they choose this method for their children.

Here in Australia, it was also difficult to enforce, and education became compulsory in the 1870s, apparently to decrease crime and teach children how to be moral law-abiding citizens.  Currently, we spend 5.9 per cent of GDP — $111.8 billion — on education, with 60 per cent of our students in government schools, and the rest in independent.  Are we getting good value for money?  As a dad of three, who has seen a drop in standards, I am going to say no and await the howls.  According to John Taylor Gatto, "In our secular society, school has become the replacement for church, and like church, it requires that its teachings be taken on faith."  He also said that "school is a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned."  Gatto was an award-winning teacher for nearly 30 years before he announced that he no longer wished to "hurt kids to make a living", and then went into a public speaking and writing career promoting open-source learning and unschooling.  He felt it was impossible for schooling and education to be the same thing.

Most schools have done reasonably well shifting over to this new method for the short term ― the girl is loving all the extra screen time she's now allowed, and maybe this will lead in a business boom for optometrists.  They even have allocated times for exercise, which they record and upload for the teacher to assess.  A brave new world indeed, although it gives a good sense of normality for some of the students.  But only for the students lucky enough to live in a household where they can afford multiple computers and high-speed Wi-Fi.  For the families with parents working from home, or out of work, or especially in abusive households, the idea of education continuing is a fantasy.  But will it make much of a difference, given our already tumbling standards?  While scrolling online, I came across a photo from a friend with a large family.  They have shifted one of the older girls out of her bedroom to convert it into a classroom for all her siblings, and have managed to scramble together enough laptops, iPads, and headphones.  This family also run a small business, and several of the children are competitive athletes.  My friend really has it all together, but she is already aware that this version of homeschooling as mostly just more computer time ― and it's only been a couple of weeks.

Nevertheless, before we know it, children will be back off to school, and life will slowly return to pre-pandemic normality for those lucky enough to still have a job.  But what will the nearly four million students have learnt in this lockdown term?  For the first time in a long time, it will be the full responsibility of the parents.

This Silent Deregulation Must Become A Pillar Of Recovery

The government has hurriedly dumped a large number of costly business rules.  Why would we now want to bring them back?

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a massive expansion of the power of the state ― heavy-handed police action and huge increases in government spending are just the most obvious.

But at the same time, the crisis has also seen a major retreat of state power in other areas ― a wave of deregulation across the economy that has almost no historical parallel.  And these regulatory reforms offer us a path back to prosperity.

The most obvious regulatory reductions have been on the medical frontline.  Some controls over the production and use of medical face masks, ventilators, virus testing and pathology have been relaxed.  Supervision requirements have been reduced for nurses re-entering the workforce.  Regulations have been eased to allow distilleries to produce alcohol-based hand sanitiser.

But the most consequential deregulations have been intended to keep the economy afloat.  Night-time curfews on delivery trucks have been lifted to ensure supermarkets can be more easily restocked, and trading and operating hours restrictions for essential retail have been eliminated.  Liquor licensing has been relaxed to allow restaurants and bars to do home-delivered alcohol.  Construction work can now be done on weekends and public holidays to make up for productivity losses that might come from trying to build while social distancing.

Other reforms have involved the government relaxing its most burdensome regulations.  The Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority has eased capital requirements on banks.  The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is reducing its enforcement and surveillance program, announcing that it would now "carefully consider the impact on businesses already under pressure" (this is great, but at the same time reveals a lot about their attitude before the pandemic).

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission has even put a hold on the program that embeds bureaucrats in private companies.  This is the program introduced after the financial services royal commission that has government-appointed psychologists observing the ethical standards of senior management.  It was widely derided as "shrinks in the boardroom" ― and it is no longer active because of COVID-19.

THE RULES WE DIDN'T NEED

Even more astonishingly, the communications regulator has suspended Australian content requirements on commercial television and pay TV.  It would be hard to nominate a more heavily defended and politically sensitive bunch of regulations.  And they have now been shelved with almost no comment.

For the past two decades Australian governments have repeatedly announced red tape reduction programs.  Regulatory reform has been a major plank of the Coalition government's agenda.  It was a major plank of the Labor government before it.  But none of those heavily promoted programs have had as much scope and scale as the COVID-19 deregulations.

Those earlier red tape reduction programs focused on the sorts of regulations that nobody was interested in defending.  They tended to eliminate lots of minor rules rather than significant ones.  The guiding principle has been quantity not quality.  Ultimately they were less major economic reform and more tidying up the statute books.

But this time is different.  The regulations that have been suspended are precisely those that are most burdensome.  They are the rules that are most costly to comply with but also least essential to support a functioning economy.

In other words, they are the rules that governments worried about the effect of over-regulation on productivity and economic growth should be very reluctant to reinstate.

This is the conversation to have now.  The pandemic is moving from urgent crisis stage to risk-management stage.  The Reserve Bank governor warns that we are looking at the greatest hit to the economy since the Great Depression.  We need to start thinking about what policy settings will be able to revive the relative prosperity we enjoyed at the end of 2019 ― and pay for all the spending that the government has committed to.

DEREGULATIONS MUST STAY

Making these temporary deregulations permanent should be one of the pillars of recovery.  We cannot assume that the economy will happily bounce back once social distancing controls are lifted.  The damage inflicted by the shutdown on business models and supply chains has made this naïve hope impossible.  The economy needs to adapt to the post-pandemic world ― quickly.  Regulations that prevent this rapid adaptation or prevent firms from establishing new sustainable business models need to be culled.

In a 2016 paper published in the European Journal of Political Economy, the economist Christian Bjørnskov looked at how economic freedom (that is, low taxes and minimal regulation) affected how different countries performed during an economic crisis.  He found that how heavily a country was regulated predicted how quickly it recovered from crisis ― the less regulation, the quicker the recovery.

A lot of the growth in government is likely to survive after the COVID-19 pandemic.  It will be politically hard to abolish free childcare or to return Newstart payments to where they were.  But we're going to need a much more productive and prosperous economy to pay for it all.  So the deregulations done during the crisis should be locked in too.  And the principles that have been established during this crisis ― that many politically popular regulations make it hard for businesses to adapt to unexpected circumstances and keep people employed ― will be needed to guide our policymakers when they return.

As Scott Morrison has said, all workers are essential.  But not all regulations are.

Not A Very Class Act

Despite the health advice consistently provided by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee which says that teachers can and should go back to school, teachers' unions across the country are continuing to dig their heels in and are doing their level best to make sure that this doesn't happen.

The message to the teachers from the Federal Government could not be clearer:  it is safe to go back to doing your job with appropriate measures in place.

The recommendation from the National Cabinet is that "on current evidence, schools can be fully open" and that "attendance at a school campus for education represents a very low health risk to students".

The advice also notes that "appropriate practices must be employed at schools, like at other workplaces, to provide a safe working environment for school staff, including teachers".

However, Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said that "we're concerned that our governments are keeping schools closed not from a health recommendation but almost because of parental fear and some reaction in local governments."

It is no coincidence that the politicians who are most opposed to reopening schools are in those states which have the most militant teachers' unions.  Daniel Andrews and his cabinet seem to be in the pockets of the Victorian teachers' unions.

This week, the Victorian Education Minister James Merlino even went so far to say that a Melbourne principal's decision to bring back half of the school students next week is "reckless".

The Education Minister's portfolio is to ensure that Victorian children receive the best education possible.  He should be working to re-open schools as quickly and as safely as possible.  Instead, he is doing his best to ensure that they stay shut.

In NSW, the union is not even prepared to consider implementing Gladys Berejiklian's plan for students to go back from May 11 in a staggered rate so that the schools are ready for full-time schooling to start in July.

In South Australia, the chief public health Officer Dr Nicola Spurrier wrote a twitter message to parents saying that schools were safe to re-open, which the AEU decided to emblazon with the words "Seriously, Spurrier?"

In Queensland, the union is also defying medical consensus by treating to not only close schools if too many children turn up or they run out of cleaning products, but it is also telling no doubt stressed parents that they will have to homeschool until the end of June.

Like everyone else, teachers would have been to the shops, done the groceries, gone for walks, shopped at Bunnings and lined up at Dan Murphy's.  However, according to the unions, going to school presents a higher risk.

In WWII, the unions refused to unload cargo.

The wharfies deliberately sabotaged the war effort by destroying vehicles and equipment, stealing food being loaded for soldiers, holding snap strikes and demanding "danger money" for loading biscuits.

Now the unions are depriving children of an education, and at the same time refusing to give much needed relief to millions of parents who are facing an everyday struggle to work from home and educate their children at the same time.  Perhaps a solution would be to pay those parents the teachers' salaries while the schools remain closed.

Teachers are not being asked to go to the front line of contagion.

During the Spanish flu pandemic in 1919, school teachers were seen to be the best source of essential workers, and were asked to volunteer to become the nucleus of an organisation to establish District Emergency Relief Depots which were designed to assist people disadvantaged by the pandemic.

This meant that teachers went directly to the houses of the very sick and the unemployed.

Most teachers who are sitting at home want to get back to work and to see their students again.  They relish the face-to-face interaction with their pupils — after all, teaching is a vocation.  Most of them see online teaching as wasteful, inadequate and boring.  The unions speak with the voice of the minority.

Teachers' unions are unique because they mostly involve government jobs.  Rather than negotiating with an employer for higher shares of the profits, they instead negotiate for more of our tax dollars.

In a free market, teacher performance and compensation go hand-in-hand, but teachers' unions rely on coercion to increase pay, and they seek to restrict competition through political means.

This may help the teachers' unions, but it is harmful towards children and their parents who pay taxes.

The unions are responsible for many problems in our education system.

Unions do not like competition, so they require teachers to get a university degree because that way they can control what the teachers are being taught.

They demotivate teachers and punish ambition because they are against performance-based pay.  It's almost impossible to sack a bad teacher, and for good teachers ambition and excellence are punished.

They undermine other forms of education, other than online learning, such as homeschooling.

Is it any wonder why Australian schoolchildren are behind in literacy and numeracy?

Teachers' unions say they care about children.  But their actions during the last month or so has sent a loud and clear message, which is that their primary concern is about themselves.

We Cannot Tax Our Way Out Of Debt

These days probably the best way to guarantee the federal Coalition government won't do something is to have Malcolm Turnbull suggest it.  So when Turnbull on the publicity tour for his book raised the prospect of further tax increases on superannuation and investment income, he might well have done enough to ensure they are unlikely to happen.  And nor should they.

Jobs and debt are the two fundamental challenges confronting Australia in the wake of the COVID-19 health crisis.

The only way of addressing these two challenges is by getting as many Australians back into work as quickly as possible.  Increasing taxes does nothing to reduce unemployment that will most probably peak at more than 10 per cent.  Last month, in one week, 780,000 lost their jobs out of a national workforce of 13 million people.

And while tax rises in the short term help pay off debt, in the long term they won't generate the productivity growth required to pay down what could be a total of $1 trillion of federal government debt within three years.

To put the federal government's interest repayments on that number into perspective, at current rates of less than 1 per cent on government bonds, the interest cost equates to about $400 a year for every Australian.  If and when interest rates normalise, at say 3 or 4 per cent, interest payments will equate to $1200 or $1600 per person to be paid every year for decade upon decade.  That soon becomes real money.

Some might say that Malcolm Turnbull and current Labor leader Anthony Albanese have more in common than just the fact the seat in the Federal Parliament the former had, and the latter has, are both in the inner city of Sydney.

FAR TOO MUCH RED TAPE

Turnbull was wrong to float the idea of higher taxes, Albanese is wrong to dismiss the prospect of lower taxes.  "What we need to make sure is that arising out of the crisis, we don't have the government go to the bottom drawer and say, 'What we need is labour market deregulation.  What we need is more tax cuts' for people who don't necessarily need it," Albanese said yesterday.

On the contrary, these policies have sat in the Coalition's bottom drawer for far too long.

As usual, former treasurer Peter Costello got it right when he warned of the "high-tax cheer squad" who will use the current crisis to permanently lift taxes.  As Costello said, far from contemplating tax increases, the Coalition should be aiming to bring forward its personal income tax cuts.  And as he pointed out, "the downturn has highlighted how much red tape we have burdened our society with, in particular financial regulation".

My research released last month revealed that since the late 1970s, while Australia's population has grown annually at an average of 1.6 per cent, and the economy at 2.5 per cent, federal government red tape, measured by the number of rules imposed by government authorities, has increased by 10 per cent a year.

The battle lines of reform are beginning to take shape, and so far the signals from the Coalition are encouraging.

When the Prime Minister, in ruling out a "coronavirus repair levy", said that "increasing taxes doesn't always grow the economy", he was right.  He could even have gone further and said it's a lot easier to find evidence of tax increases shrinking the economy rather than growing it.

Changing the structure and mix of the tax system is important, but it's a medium-term goal for Scott Morrison's next term of government.  A 20-year argument about tax isn't going to be resolved in the next six months.

Instead, the beginning of a reform agenda looks like this:

1. Cut the taxes that already exist ― by bringing forward the government's planned personal income tax reduction.
2. Cut red tape (or at least stop its growth) by implementing a 12-month ban on all new federal government regulation.
3. Make it easier for small business to employ workers ― by exempting small business from parts of the Fair Work Act.

That isn't only an agenda for reform.  It's an agenda to provide what Australia needs most at the moment, which is hope for a more prosperous future.

Stop The World, We Want To Change It!

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic we have been repeatedly told that the only moral position is to defeat the virus at all costs.  Any suggestion that the economic effects of keeping everyone in their homes and shutting down the country warrant our consideration is considered crass or obscene.  If you venture that a bankrupt country is unlikely to be a healthy country, you are liable to be charged with attempted murder.  Instead, the common, or at least loud and angry, refrain is that we must secure public health first, and only then can we worry about the future.

The antagonism proposed here is between those who are (earnestly, righteously) concerned with the lives at stake right now and those who are (selfishly, inhumanely) concerned with how society and the economy that sustains it will look after the shutdown.  If we look more closely, though, we can see who is really exploiting this crisis.

Leave to one side what exactly total victory might require and focus on the extraordinary presentism of this argument.  The strongest version of the at-all-costs position is along these lines:  worrying about the future treats the people of the present, especially those most vulnerable to the disease, as means to our own ends, and not as ends unto themselves.  Hence the claim that anyone worried for the future is willing to sacrifice grandma for the economy, or to go to the pub, or whatever.

Yet this can't be right ― the argument elides the way most people are indeed being deployed as means to the goal of stopping the spread of the disease.  If we were being consistent, this reasoning would also preclude us from coercing individuals to participate in a collective action with an end they may not have chosen for themselves.  The coercion, legitimate and even right in the circumstances, is obviously not based on viewing individual dignity as some sort of trump.

Put another way, the at-all-costs argument is not really that calculation about the future is wrong.  It is instead a specific calculation about the future.  If we say something like, "The greatest good overall will be obtained if our actions now contemplate the future economic conditions of our society", the response is not that such a statement is obscene;  rather it is more that, "The greater good overall will be obtained if we defeat Covid-19 completely, which outweighs any concerns about the future economic conditions of our society".

For most people, this choice is a genuine dilemma.  They can see reason on both sides.  They follow the state's social distancing instructions while anxiously wondering if their jobs will still be there when the shutdown ends.

But if the debate is really just between two different utilitarian calculations, we are left with the question of where the anger (which is entirely on one side of the debate) originates.

Under closer examination, the people pushing the at-all-costs line most vociferously seem to have an ulterior motive.  They hope to exploit the crisis to promote radical changes that would not be considered otherwise.  The crisis can be redeemed if it leads to a revolution in the economic and social arrangements of our country.

Consider:  one factor in how you might determine the two calculations presented is how much value you place on our present economic and social institutions.  If you value them highly, then naturally you will include them in your preferred pandemic response.  But if you think they are of low or even negative value, because they are unjust, then you will not only disregard them from your calculation, but also support pandemic measures that you think are most likely to upend them.  The suggestion we consider existing value ― contained in the businesses and associations that will close, the liberties that will be compromised, and the lives that, because they depend on those institutions, will be lost to despair and ill health ― is outrageous, because it perpetuates injustice.

This is why agitation for the maximal response is usually accompanied by claims about what must change.  The pandemic apparently demonstrates the need to defer more readily to experts, implement a universal basic income, make preschool free, and centrally-fix wages, among other things.  Even banal predictions like the demise of the office and the rise of online education are in this genre.  Some people get angry when told that none of this radicalism is necessary.

Worse still, their radicalism is incoherent.  Our participation in the shutdown is motivated by our duty to society ― as captured by the concept of public health itself.  Each of us is obliged to stop the spread of the disease, even though most of us will not contract the virus.  Public health refers not to mutual goods, but to a common good.  The duty it creates is not owed reciprocally by individuals to one another, but to the society of which we are stewards, having inherited it from our ancestors.  As such, the duty demands we consider our children and grandchildren.  The obligation is the same for every generation:  to provide a future that is continuous with the past.

It is not surprising then that, far from recommending revolution, the pandemic has reinforced the value of traditional goods.  Stay-at-home orders, for example, might not be quite so harsh were more people homeowners than renters of small apartments.  The alienation of social distancing might not be so severe were more adults married with children.  Expert rule might be more effective had the academy and media class not been engaged in generations-long ideological mission creep.  Perhaps borders and self-sufficiency might also have renewed credibility now that globalism has gone viral.

In any event, we are right to worry about what society will look like after the pandemic ends.  We are obliged to do so for the same reason that we were obliged to act against the virus in the first place.  But the source of that obligation argues against conceiving it as a reason for revolution.  The proper conclusion is the exact opposite.

Media Scrutiny Has Shut Down Too

There's a fine line between the government protecting people and punishing them.  It might be that in the context of the COVID-19 crisis that line is about to be crossed ― if it hasn't been already.  Why the health authorities in some states have decided that someone can't sit by themselves on a park bench is just one of the many unexplained aspects of the crisis.

Another unexplained aspect of the crisis is why there has been so little scrutiny from the public or the press of the decisions made by the government and by the health authorities.

Many media outlets are members of the Your Right To Know coalition which aims to make the operations of government more accountable and transparent.  Yet until the last week, with the notable exception of this newspaper and one or two journalists in other organisations, those same media outlets that belong to Your Right To Know have refused to ask of our politicians fundamental questions such as for how long 25 million Australians can expect to be under what is basically house arrest.

The Canberra press gallery has obediently recited the "modelling" offered up by the authorities about the medical impact of the crisis, yet hasn't bothered to ask about whether any government has done any modelling of the social, community, and economic consequences of the lockdown lasting up to six months.

To put it bluntly, much of the Australian media has failed to fulfil some of their most basic responsibilities in a free society, namely to question the government and hold it to account.  With parliaments around the country suspended, the role of inquisitive and sceptical voices has never been more important.

It's gone largely unremarked in the media that the initial justification for the draconian lockdown of the country, which was to "flatten the curve" and prevent the hospital system being overwhelmed, appears to have been achieved.

Likewise, it's barely been commented upon by most of the journalists and commentators writing about the crisis that, beyond flattening the curve, no state or federal government minister has actually revealed to the public what is their strategy to deal with the virus.

That the government as yet has no long-term plan is certainly the implication of the comments by the federal deputy chief medical officer, Nick Coatsworth, when he said this week that health advisers were "deeply and thoroughly" exploring measures to combat the virus.

When it comes to telling the Australian public about the health authorities' measures of success or failure in dealing with COVID-19, it's not that so much that the government keeps on moving the goalposts ― it's more like the government has taken them down and buried them, and refuses to tell anyone where they are.  That's not good for democracy.

Too many journalists, especially those at the ABC, are so fixated on signalling their own virtues through their support for a semi-permanent lockdown that they refuse to countenance any alternative viewpoint.  And it might be that part of the reason Liberal MPs are so reluctant to talk about beginning to end the lockdown is because they like, for a change, not being attacked by the national broadcaster.

The lack of debate in this country about what an exit strategy from the lockdown looks like and when it might be implemented is in sharp contrast to what's been happening in, for example, the United States and Britain.

Keir Starmer, the new leader of the British Labour Party, is hardly a radical free-market libertarian, yet a few days ago he expressed a view which in Australia at least has only been heard in places such as the website Catallaxy Files.

Starmer urged the British government to be publish its exit strategy from the lockdown.  He said that some aspects of social distancing would have to be maintained, but:  "We've got to have the trust of the public … for that trust there needs to be transparency and openness."  He said the "silent pressures" on communities "cannot be underestimated" and "to maintain morale and hope people need a sense of what comes next".

Hope and a sense of what comes next is what Australians, at the moment, do not have.

ScoMo, Josh: Without An Exit Strategy We Face Higher Taxes, Higher Debt, A Higher Cost Of Living ― And Little Hope

The $320 billion of fiscal and monetary measures in response to the coronavirus, however necessary, will impose a debilitating cost on all Australians with consequences for years to come.  The government needs to outline an exit strategy from these extraordinary levels of intervention.

The Morrison government is right to prioritise assisting businesses to come through the lockdown and maintain their connection with their employees, but an additional $214 billion of fiscal spending combined with a large hit to government revenue could send total federal government debt on a path toward $1 trillion.

There is no cost-free way to fund this massive expansion in government expenditure.  All spending is funded in one of three ways:  it can be taxed from taxpayers, borrowed, or created by central banks.  All of these methods of funding will come at the expense of Australian workers, families, and businesses.

Taxation comes directly from taxpayers in a very noticeable way, making it the most honest way to finance government spending.  It is also the most moral way, as it imposes the cost of government on the current generation who receive the benefit of government spending.

However, funding government spending by borrowing money burdens future taxpayers who are forced to fund debt repayments and service the interest.  This will mean a combination of higher taxation and fewer services for future generations.  Imposing debt on future generations because of this generation's inability to live within its means should be to our national shame.

Deficit spending can also crowd out private sector debt used to finance productive businesses.  The issuance of government debt puts upward pressure on interest rates resulting in reduced investment and productivity, which in turn reduces wage growth and the quality and quantity of consumer goods and services enjoyed by Australians.

The government has instead turned to the third method ― monetising the debt.  This approach is the most politically expedient, but also highly dishonest and pernicious.

The Reserve Bank of Australia, like many central banks around the world, is purchasing government debt and funding their bloated balance sheet with newly created money.  The RBA's balance sheet has jumped by over $100 billion since February to $278 billion.

The RBA has committed to targeting an interest rate on three-year Treasury bonds of 0.25 per cent until "progress is made towards full employment".  With more government debt about to hit the market from deep deficit spending, the RBA will have to buy up big in order to suppress interest rates.

Unlike the monetary expansion enacted during the Global Financial Crisis, this time the RBA is unlikely to have a mining boom to boost the economy.  Instead, they will be forced to assist an economy coming out of a debilitating shutdown with high unemployment and underemployment, and low levels of investment.  Under these circumstances, it will be very difficult for the RBA to reverse the monetary expansion.

With hundreds of billions of dollars of new money flowing into the economy at a time of economic shutdown, there will be a lot more money chasing a lot fewer goods and services.  If the RBA successfully mitigates credit contraction, we could see significant price inflation.  This would erode the value of accumulated savings and undermine saving and investment that is crucial for productivity and wage growth.  A weaker Australian dollar will continue to raise the cost of living by making imported goods and services more expensive.

Continual monetary expansion also disproportionately benefits the well-connected at the expense of those distant from the money creation process.  Newly created money will flow in to bail out the banks with a flood of liquidity and access to cheap lines of credit.  The stock market and housing market will be reinflated, favouring those in the market at the expense of those outside.  And the cost of living will increase ahead of the wages of a multitude of disconnected workers.

There has been little media attention given to how the Government plans to pay for this massive expansion in spending and no discussion of how the Reserve Bank plans to unwind their substantial boost to liquidity without causing high inflation.

If the Coalition couldn't return the budget to surplus over seven years of economic expansion, it is unclear what circumstances will be required in the future for a government to do so.

After the coronavirus threat has cleared, Australia will need bold leadership to reign in the public debt through reduced spending, less red tape, and a smaller public service with lower pay that better reflects the low-risk nature of their jobs.  If this is not achieved, we will be condemning future generations to a country with high taxes, high debt, and little hope.

We Must Ensure Our Liberties Are Returned As Swiftly As They Have Been Taken

On March 30, New South Wales went to bed in a liberal democracy and woke up in a police state as with a stroke of a pen Brad Hazzard signed into law an Orwellian directive.

The Public Health (COVID-19 Restrictions on Gathering and Movement) Order 2020 was signed into law on that day and was in full force by the morning.  This directive effectively made it illegal to leave the house without a "reasonable excuse".

The effect of this directive is that the people of New South Wales must be able to prove that they are leaving their house for food, exercise, education or work, or medical or caring reasons.

This law gave enormous discretionary powers to the police to enforce this directive and equips them with harsh punishments including fines of up to $11,000 and prison for anyone not complying.

The object of this directive is to enforce social distancing but does so in a manner that is completely disproportionate and vests excessive power with the police.

This directive restricts liberties above and beyond what is required to achieve the object.  Making people to justify being outside, even when they are alone, is extreme.  There is no risk being averted by restricting peoples movement to this extent that could not be prevented by observing them and their adherence to social distancing orders.

Likewise, activities such as walking the dog, reading a book, or getting some sun, are all activities which are illegal under this directive as they do not constitute a "reasonable excuse", and can all be conducted whilst keeping an appropriate social distance.

The Police Commissioner Mick Fuller assured the public that the police would "show discretion", but this is the same police force that was mired with scandal last year for strip-searching minors.

People were shocked to see footage of the enforcement activities of police so far.  One couple in the footage had sat down to have a break from walking and was swiftly moved along.  Surely resting between exercises is an instance for police to apply their much-promised discretion?  Activities incidental to whatever "reasonable excuse" people should not be policed this harshly.  By this standard, people checking out the specials on cleaning aisle when they are left their house to buy bananas could be reprimanded.

Mick Fuller defended the actions of the police saying they have not issued a single fine despite having the power to issue them on the spot.  This is a point that ought to be emphasised.  The average cop on the beat has empathy for the public are finding it difficult to keep up with all the changes in law.  They understand that people have whiplash from all the dos and don'ts over the past month.

Other states have followed with similar pandemic measures of their own, all too often enforced with a contradictory ham-fistedness.

The more important concern here is the swiftness with which powers were gained and liberties lost.

It doesn't take a dyed in the wool civil libertarian to be concerned that within 24 hours the Minister can magic up powers that can turn New South Wales in 2020 into Oceania in 1984.

Extraordinary times may justify measures that would never be acceptable otherwise, but should never be an excuse for excessive use and abuse of power.

A utilitarian might argue that the situation requires that we must trade our freedoms for the benefit of the many, but everyone suffers under mass house arrest by threat of fine or gaol.

The people of New South Wales should mark down the date of 29th of June, that is the day these draconian laws expire but, as with everything that is penned under emergency powers, it can be invoked quickly but slowly revoked.

Australians have a duty to hold their leaders to account and ensure that our liberties are returned to us swiftly as they have been taken.  We must make sure that emergency powers are removed as promptly as they were acquired.

It is said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.  Health and finances for most Australians have become oppressively pressing, but it is essential that we keep an eye on our leaders.

A symptom of coronavirus is said to be a loss is our senses of taste and smell;  a loss of our anti-authoritarian spirit must not be another.  Those with power are not to get too comfortable with it, and the populace must not become accustomed to being lorded over.

If we don't obstinately demand that our liberties returned, we might wake up to a police state every morning.

Beautiful One Day, Police State The Next

To control the spread of a dangerous virus that as yet has taken 24 lives in this country, 25 million Australians have been placed under indefinite house arrest, children's playgrounds are locked and patrolled by security guards, and the police fly drones over beaches and parks.

To control a virus that as yet has infected 5000 Australians, the response of doctors and politicians to this serious health crisis was to create also a humanitarian and an economic crisis.  In the years to come Australians will quite rightly question whether there could have been a better way.

Future generations will ask why the public was so quick to accept the opinions of those experts who presented the worst-case scenarios rather than listen to other experts, no less qualified to offer a judgment, but who suggested less draconian solutions than those that came to be implemented.

Those future generations will also ponder how in 2020 it was that so many Australians could have become so completely disengaged and removed from what happens in the economy that they could advocate policies that would have shut down practically all economic activity in the country.

This is the position of the Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, who said:  "The government has a responsibility to deal with this health emergency.  That is the first priority.  Then, it needs to deal with the economic consequences of the health emergency and the appropriate response.  It needs to be done in that order."

Sadly, Albanese seems not to understand that the economic emergency Australia faces involves people's lives in exactly the same way as does the health emergency.

Australians like to joke about how the country's second-most populous state has become "The People's Socialist Republic of Victoria".  But it is no laughing matter that in the space of just a few weeks Victoria became a police state, as its government made laws and then enforced those laws, in ways not very different from how the worst socialist regimes operate.  The New South Wales government ("liberal" in name only) has been quick to follow Victoria's lead.

PASSED WITHOUT SCRUTINY

In Victoria, the most extreme house arrest laws in the country were enacted without parliamentary authority and without any form of public or democratic scrutiny.  They were simply made under an enabling act that allows the government do anything it "considers is reasonably necessary to protect public health".  Using this power, Victoria has enacted house arrest laws that are arbitrary, unpredictable, and that are changed, literally, hour by hour at the whim of politicians and bureaucrats.

On Wednesday morning the Victorian Premier declared that it was against the law for anyone to leave their home for any non-essential purpose, including couples who lived apart visiting each other.  Just before 5pm that day, following a community backlash, the government announced couples would be exempt from the law.

Meanwhile, in New South Wales, police officers harass people sitting alone on park benches.  In 1984, Big Brother at least allowed Winston Smith to go outside.

Jonathan Sumption, a former judge on the UK Supreme Court, gave an interview to the BBC on Monday in which he warned of the consequences of untrammelled power in the hands of politicians and the police.  Everything he said applies to Australia.  Of police operating in the UK in the same way as they are in Victoria and New South Wales, Sumption said:  "That is what a police state is like.  It's a state in which the government can issue orders or express preferences with no legal authority and the police will enforce ministers' wishes."

It is significant that despite all the coverage it has devoted to the current crisis, the mainstream media in Australia has made no reference to the interview.  It might be that the answer to Sumption's question is too uncomfortable.

"Yes this is serious and yes it's understandable that people cry out to the government," Sumption said.

"But the real question is:  Is this serious enough to warrant putting most of our population into house imprisonment, wrecking our economy for an indefinite period, destroying businesses that honest and hard-working people have taken years to build up, saddling future generations with debt, depression, stress, heart attacks, suicides and unbelievable distress …"

Comic Books Are Now A Laughing Stock

History will likely say that the comic book industry was sunk by the repressive measures adopted to control the spread of coronavirus.  In reality it is the industry's bizarre obsession with identity politics that ensured the death of this classic storytelling medium was an inevitability.

The partial economic shutdown in the United States and other Western economies is wreaking havoc on comic book shops.  One major retailers' prediction of an "extinction event" was seemingly confirmed only a few days later when Diamond Comic Distributors, the industry's sole bridge connecting publishers and shops, announced it was ceasing operations indefinitely.  Several publishers have already put out a "pencils down" notice to their staff and contractors to stop work altogether.

An economic shock should be costly but shouldn't kill an entire industry.  Other print mediums are still publishing and distributing during this crisis and will survive.  The distinction lies in the comic industry engaging in the kind of self-harm that only a growing economy could (barely) tolerate.  The costs of allowing the medium to be hijacked by propogandists to treat the humble comic book like political pamphlets rather than heroic adventure stories are now being felt.

Market leader Marvel Comics' tone-deaf announcement of a woke new series in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic has made the entire industry a laughing stock.  In the face of retailers desperate to know what Marvel's crisis plans were, the publisher in March revealed New Warriors, a reboot of a series which first launched in 1990 but now featuring characters with names such as "Snowflake" and "Safespace".  The former was touted as the company's first non-binary character and the latter described as a "big, burly, sort of stereotypical jock" with pink hair and a matching pink onesie.  Words alone can't describe the visual cringe of the promotional material.  This is not the work of a satirist mocking social justice — this is an actual entertainment industry in 2020.  Unsurprisingly, this has garnered some attention in the mainstream press.  Broadcasting to normal people that they should stay away from the market leader — and by inference the shops that sell their books — couldn't have come at a worse time.

Unfortunately this is not a new development.  In two articles for The Speccie in 2018 and 2019, I described how "a destructive force in a creative industry" have reengineered the medium to prioritise "representation" and to be a platform of social justice activism.  Classic characters were reinvented with new gender or cultural identities and the stories were increasingly steeped in the post-2016 anti-Trump derangement of the artists, writers and editors.

The efforts have been commercially unsuccessful.  Years of declining sales and closed stores — at a time when superheroes have dominated the box office — have not been addressed.  This makes sense if the underlying agenda is not to generate sales and the major publishers are just small subsidiaries of corporate conglomerates who will absorb the cost as the price of showcasing their diversity.

The hidden cost of agenda-based storytelling is that an entire generation may grow up without the kind of stories of heroism that are important to a society.  Addressing issues about personal responsibility, selflessness, good judgment and justice in a mainstream setting has significant cultural value.  Travis Smith, the associate professor of political science at Concordia University in Quebec noted in his book Superhero Ethics that "treating superheroes as metaphors turns them into examples of power and freedom that we can use to improve our own lives".

"Cultivating responsibility in others and ourselves is our duty, and this is done not only by providing living examples to emulate but also by telling stories to educate;  we are more receptive to analogies than commands," Smith says.

The traditional superhero could once reliably exemplify or aspire to represent the four cardinal virtues:  prudence (the ability to discern the appropriate course of action in a given situation), courage (the ability to confront fear, uncertainty, and intimidation), temperance (restraint, self-control and sound-mindedness) and justice (fairness and righteousness).  But these ideas are incompatible with the moral relativism at the heart of modern progressivism.

Holding a relativistic worldview means rejecting objective truth.  This is why progressives can't tell heroic stories.  Since they don't believe in right and wrong, the only virtue their "heroes" can possibly possess is their identity.  They are heroic just by existing.  Social justice, the progressive value which is concerned with the redistribution of wealth and privileges in society, is an inherently totalitarian ideology that elevates group identities and collectivism above individualism and freedom.  Membership of the group identity comes with it the obligation to express prescribed political beliefs.

At Marvel the obsession with political activism is a company-wide commitment.  In late 2019, the publisher released Hero Project, a documentary to showcase the "heroism" of children advocating for political causes.  Episode 5 featured a 12-year-old transgendered girl who "became actively involved in LGBTQ support when the Trump administration took a firm stance against rights for trans students".  The person in charge of Hero Project is Sana Amanat, a mysterious senior executive at Marvel who was handed the mission to be the company's political commissar.  When Amanat was plucked from obscurity to be an editor in 2009, an executive told her she had "something different to offer" and "they need her voice in order to change Marvel".  All the entertainment companies have their own Sana Amanat's spearheading a range of new woke television programmes, films and literature designed to challenge the primacy of white males in society by giving representation to marginalised groups.  Star Wars, Terminator, Ghostbusters, and Men in Black are some of the long-running franchises that have recently committed to representation but failed to inspire or entertain.

The market for comic books was an early adopter of woke entertainment but proved that the reinterpretation of heroes doesn't sell.  In November 2018, in this magazine, I noted that "the industry limps on, infected with an ideology that values propaganda over capitalism".  In 2020, this ideology may be a luxury that a post-coronavirus world will refuse to indulge.

Australia's Other Plague: Incestuous 'Intellectuals'

Few images better capture the out of touch and incompetent nature of Australia's self-described elites as three university academics playing word games to describe the economy as "hibernating" while the lives of millions of normal Australians are being destroyed and disfigured, some permanently.

According to reports in the Nine papers (April 1, 2020), three academics from the Australian National University developed the term "hibernation" to describe the shutting down of the Australian economy as a consequence of the social distancing measures enacted by state and Commonwealth governments.  The term is meant to capture the temporary nature of the crisis.

This is no temporary crisis.  This is a tragedy of biblical proportions.

Many of the Australians who will become unemployed over the next six months will not simply go into hibernation, to then thaw out and resume business as usual.  They will never work again.  Their wages will never recover.  Their lives will never be the same.

Precious moments will be lost and never recovered, like all of the grandparents who can't see their grandchildren.  Like all of the elderly who are trapped isolated, alone and afraid in the homes.  And like all of the Australians who have had destroyed in just days the small businesses they built up over years.

Perhaps if you work at a multi-billion-dollar taxpayer funded organization protected by government from competition or wage cuts then it is easy to practice social distancing and talk via Zoom or Skype to play clever word games which mischaracterize reality.  It is also not a surprise that the secretary of the Treasury Department, Steven Kennedy, is an alumnus of the ANU, as are many of his colleagues at Treasury and the Reserve Bank of Australia.  Such is the incestuous nature of Australia's expert class.

One wonders if any of those involved in the development of the hibernation strategy have ever looked a colleague who has a family and a mortgage in the eye and told them there are not enough customers coming through the door to keep them employed.

If universities wanted to be helpful, perhaps they could open the doors of the dormitories once filled with thousands of foreign students to those who need to be put in quarantine, rather than being put up at taxpayers' expense in five-star accommodation.  Or perhaps universities could stop the persecution of those such as Professor Peter Ridd, now the subject of an appeal against his sweeping legal victory last year, to allow for the free exchange of ideas and opinions which is so crucial in a time of uncertainty.

Or perhaps, instead of wasting taxpayer dollars on research programs which tell Australians what awful, racist, and bigoted people they are, the universities could analyse how Australia could improve its pandemic response ability.  On this last point, my research found identity politics was the single most common theme in the historical studies discipline to receive funding under the Australian Research Council's Competitive Grants Program.

Famous conservative philosopher Sir Roger Scruton argued that "intellectuals are naturally attracted by the idea of a planned society, in the belief that they will be in charge of it."  Trouble is, the intellectuals are in charge ― and only an intellectual could think that our jobs, social relations, and institutions can be temporarily put into hibernation and then brought back to life via government edict.  This is why shared sacrifice is so important.  Those developing the ideas and policies which are putting Australians out of work must themselves have skin in the game and feel some of the pain of their own decisions and advice.

One suggestion is that for every one tenth of a percentage point increase in the unemployment rate (such as from 5.5 per cent to 5.6 per cent), is accompanied by a one per cent cut to the pay of senior public servants.  And if the unemployment rate goes above seven per cent, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Governor of the Reserve Bank must lose their jobs.

Another suggestion is for all of the experts advising the government to be put in front of a rolling set of parliamentary inquiries so Australians can understand the assumptions underpinning government decisions.  It would be interesting to see if the health experts who modelled the impact of the coronavirus also modelled the social, cultural, and institutional impacts of economic depression.

We Need Strength To Survive, Not A Shutdown Of Our Economy

Australia needs strength to survive the coronavirus, but many policies designed to manage the spread may be counterproductively weakening our social, political and economic systems.

Last week two images from Bondi shocked and appalled the nation.

The first image that caused a stir was a typically Australian scene of carefree Bondi bathers.  At any other time this would be unremarkable, but when social distancing and mass house arrest is normal going for a dip gets lambasted in the media as errant.

In the wake of scenes such as this, a mass lockdown of all non-essential services such as bars and cafes was instituted.

The next image that channeled the collective ire was one of people desperately lining up at the Centrelink office after the lockdown resulted in mass closure of businesses and unemployment.

Young service workers bore the brunt of this lockdown, the very people who are least likely to require a hospital bed if they contract this virus.

The cost-benefit analysis of the policies coming out of federal and state governments are looking pretty bleak for the youth of Australia.  Loss of employment, loss of freedom, huge amounts of debt from all the spending that will inevitably fall on their future shoulders, and a recession to rival that of the Great Depression to boot.

The orthodoxy is that these measures are required to slow the transmission so the health system won't be overwhelmed, however, this view is reductive and doesn't take into account the other systems that are quickly buckling under the strain of government policy.

There is no easy solution to this crisis.  Policymakers are trying to protect the vulnerable, which of cause should be the paramount concern considering they will pay the most tragic price if they are exposed to this virus.  However, it is worth looking at the policy response holistically.  We need action that protects not just on the elderly and vulnerable, but also on the young and healthy.  We need policy that preserves not just the health system, but all our other vital networks as well.

Just as the human immune system loses strength when deprived of muscle mass from exercise, minerals from nutritious food, or vitamin D from the sun, stagnation weakens our social networks, freedoms, and economies as well.

Our support networks are fraying as we isolate from our community.  Never has there been a crisis which required our touch points to dissolve.  The shut down of gatherings and non-essential services has seen places of worship closed and our national religion (sport) stopped.  The Saint Bartholomew church in London that provided solace during the Great Fire, the Black Death, and the Blitz has closed due to coronavirus.  Humans are social creatures, even the most introverted needs a community and for the extraverted, the deprivation would be a reason for civil disobedience.

Our political systems are becoming more draconian with each day.  A crisis, it is always argued, requires that we trade in our freedoms as a temporary necessity, but alas such measures (such as the federal grab of taxation powers from the states during World War II) always seem to stick well after their expiration date.  The longer we marinate in this heavy-handed political environment, the more acceptable it will become.

Finally, the longer people are out of employment and businesses are unable to open the more protracted the recovery.  Our economy is simply a mirror that reflects the flourishing of people.  Recessions produce mass unemployment which leads to all kinds of human suffering from loss of purpose to deprivation of warm shelter or nutritious food all which affect health and wellbeing.

This virus is here to stay, it is not a question of if most of us will get it but when.  We either face it in a relative position of strength or later when our systems could be beyond compare.

The policies which are expanding government power and regulation need a sunset clause, and preferably sooner rather than later.  During the remaining lockdown time we can set up additional protections to secure those that are at risk and funnel extra money to stocking up on tests and preparing hospitals.  However, ultimately the healthy would be better served by keeping calm, carrying on and washing their hands.

It is always better to tackle a difficulty from a position of strength.  The longer we lockdown our social, political and economic systems the more likely irreparable damage becomes.

How Red Tape is Compounding The Coronavirus Commerce Crisis

Red tape is exacerbating the economic fallout brought on by the coronavirus crisis by making it more difficult for businesses to adjust to changing circumstances.

While no one could foresee the outbreak of a global pandemic, politicians and bureaucrats have willingly ignored the red tape crisis for years.

Red tape increases the likelihood of economic crises, deepens these crises when they occur, and prevents a quick economic recovery.

Red tape makes the economy more susceptible to economic shocks by putting unnecessary pressure on businesses even during the good times.  Many businesses, especially small and family-owned ones, run on very slim margins which are made even slimmer by unnecessary compliance obligations.  When a crisis hits and cash flow slows, red tape diverts resources away from recovery and toward compliance.

During a crisis red tape prevents businesses from responding in the most effective way.  Rather than adapting their business model or innovating to respond to the changing needs of consumers, some businesses are left with no choice but to shut down.  This creates enormous stress for owners, with many small business owners risking their family home used as collateral for business loans, and for employees who are now out of the job.

And red tape acts as a handbrake on economic recovery by adding to the cost of starting new businesses and employing new staff.

Three recent examples demonstrate how red tape is making the current economic crisis worse.

Food truck owners in Western Australia have warned that they are likely to lose their livelihoods as their entire calendars are cancelled in order to comply with the federal government's limit on the size of gatherings.  To respond, food truck owners want the freedom to serve food in alternative settings.  Cafes and restaurants have been allowed to respond to the lock-downs announced over the weekend by providing takeaway or delivery options.  Excessive compliance obligations, however, prevent food trucks from adapting in a similar manner.

Food trucks must be registered under the WA Food Act 2008, with the council where the truck is stored, and with each council they wish to operate in.  Each of these registrations requires submitting a form (usually around five pages long), providing supporting documents such as a floor plan and evidence of the truck's registration with the council it is garaged in, and paying a fee.  These forms typically take around 10 days each to process and once approved food trucks can only be operated in specified areas of each council.

Sandra Bahbah, who owns a Perth-based food truck, explained to WAToday, "This is going to be a disaster for the industry.  A lot of [businesses] will fail because they won't be able to afford the hit".

Supermarket operators want to respond to rapidly escalating demand by restocking outside of the usual hours so that the shelves can be full for customers the following day.  But rules which prohibit supermarkets from making deliveries outside of strict timeframes prevent this stocking from occurring.  These timeframes vary from council to council, and between different supermarkets within each council.  Russell Zimmerman, executive director of the Australian Retailers Association, explained the situation to The Australian earlier this month, saying "If we could get those trucks into those retail stores at other times beyond the curfew times [typically 7am to 10pm], there is a huge opportunity to get the stocks into the shelves so that people would then realise that the stock is there".  Fortunately, some states have acted on this, but there is much more to do.

Section 487 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 allows activists to engage in "lawfare" to delay and disrupt major development projects.  My recent research estimated that this has put $65 billion of investment at risk since the year 2000 by holding up projects in court for a cumulative 10,100 days.  Section 487 has placed a significant burden on the economy, but it does not improve environmental outcomes.  I have demonstrated that 94 per cent of cases brought about through it have not resulted in substantial changes to the original project proposal.

These three examples illustrate the broader cost of red tape which I have estimated to be $176 billion each year.  This cost captures of all the businesses never started, the pay rises never given, and the hours spent complying with the edicts of unelected bureaucrats rather than training new employees and running a successful business.

This red tape burden is one of the key causes of Australia's weak economic foundations.  New private sector business investment is only 10.9 per cent of GDP.  This is the lowest level since the last recession in 1990-91 and is even lower than the average rate in the turbulent times under the Whitlam government.

Low business investment is caused by excessive red tape, an inflexible labour market, and a corporate tax rate that towers above the OECD average.

No matter how quickly or slowly the coronavirus crisis passes, these structural issues must be addressed.

Governments at the local, state, and commonwealth level must cut red tape to lessen the severity of the forthcoming economic crisis, and enable a quicker recovery where businesses can open and people can get back into work.

How Localism And Community Spirit Can See Us Through The Corona Crisis

Rather than more centralisation of powers with the government and bureaucrats in Canberra, a better approach to managing coronavirus would be through localism underpinned by a shared set of values.

Coronavirus has demonstrated that totalitarian regimes fear the free dissemination of information more than perhaps anything else.  Coronavirus spread in part because the medicos and ordinary people of Wuhan were not allowed by Chinese authorities to warn their countrymen or citizens of other countries.  The world watched as the doctor that tried to sound the alarm about the virus died at the same time as journalists were expelled from the province.

Even when not accompanied by brute force, centralism creates information gluts and disempowers citizens to act.

The impulse to centralise information to prevent "misinformation" is counterproductive.  Take the social media outlets, for example.  On March 17, Facebook decided to stop the spread of "fake news" by flagging all commentary on the virus as against "community standards".  This included not just commentary on the health implications of the virus, but also commentary and analysis on potential social implications, and, the fiscal and monetary response of governments.  Similarly, Twitter users searching for articles on the virus were redirected to the World Health Organisation's guidelines.  In effect, these social media networks are censoring discussions about the flow-on issues and government responses to coronavirus.

Localism, by contrast, enables individuals as part of broader communities to spread information and act on it quickly.  This is the complete opposite to a centralised technocracy that dispenses information from the top down and quickly hides discrepancies if new information does not fit the narrative they want to tell.

Localism, however, is dependent on social cohesion, culture, and above all, values.

Localism requires social cohesion.  Unfortunately, society is fraying as high levels of migration combine with increasing social atomisation.  Australians have moved from towns to cities, from houses to apartments, and from owned to rented properties.  Fewer Australians now know their neighbours or have a stake in their community, in large part because their neighbours and community changes so often.

The lack of physical bonds has been replaced with large global networks.  And as nice as friends in other countries are, we can't ask them for a cup of sugar (or a toilet paper roll).  No wonder people feel they need to stockpile.  The scenes of people fighting in supermarkets, which the Prime Minister rightly said was "un-Australian" in a press conference Wednesday last week, suddenly make sense if people think it is one against the world.

Hopefully tough times will also bring people together.  By helping the neighbour across the corridor with some extra supplies (particularly if they are in self-isolation) maybe we can find our sense of community again.

Localism is based on a shared culture.  Everyone can be an Australian.  It is an identity based not on ethnicity but attitude.

Our culture is to overlay the best British manners, like queuing patiently, with larrikinism.  An anecdote that history podcaster Dan Carlin tells in his WWI series is the time he asked an old US military man who the toughest soldiers were, the reply was the ANZACs because they were always laughing.

Australia has survived much worse hardships through humour, grit and good sense.

The glue that holds a community together, whether that be as small as a household or as big as a nation, is values.

However easy-going we might be, we should encourage the people who live here uphold Australian values which are immortalised at the Isurava battle site on the Kokoda Track where the words "courage, endurance, mateship and sacrifice."

These values are as true today as when they were first etched.

Post coronavirus Australia has a great opportunity to flourish, but first we must cut away the twin problems of centralisation and division which have been allowed to fester.

Coronavirus Pain Must Be Shared Around

The economic and social burden of the government-imposed sanctions to manage the health crisis must be shared equally with the public sector, which so far has remained shielded from the fallout while thousands of small businesses, sole traders and tradies go to the wall.

Seven modest measures to cut inefficient and wasteful government spending worth $30bn could be redirected to help fund the commonwealth government economic recovery packages, which assuming an annual salary of $80,000 could save 375,000 jobs.

Inefficient and wasteful spending is any dollar the commonwealth government is spending that does not meet the objectives set out by Scott Morrison of keeping Australians in a job and businesses operating.

Public servants on average have higher wages and higher superannuation contributions than private sector workers in Australia.  This is unacceptable in good times but unconscionable in the middle of economic and social Armageddon.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, average weekly private sector earnings are 20 per cent lower than in the public sector, implying a $4.4bn annual commonwealth public service wage premium (20 per cent of the total commonwealth public sector wage bill of $22.12bn).

Commonwealth public servants also receive at least 15.4 per cent superannuation, compared with 9.5 per cent for private sector workers, implying a $1.3bn annual commonwealth public service superannuation premium.

The combined premium is $5.7bn, which (at an annual salary of $80,000) would be equivalent to 71,250 jobs.

Scandalously, according to the Australian Public Service Commissioner's 2018 Remuneration Report, one executive level 2 employee — which is the equivalent to a middle manager who might manage five staff — received $934,612 in 2018.  This included an eye-watering "retention bonus" of $91,196, which is higher than Australia's median salary.

No one in the public service should be receiving a productivity or retention bonus until the crisis is over and the unemployment rate drops below 5 per cent.

According to the APSC's report, the average "benefit" component — sign-on, productivity, retention and performance bonuses — of public sector salaries is 15 per cent.  Removing this and keeping the remaining 85 per cent base salary would net $3.3bn, or 41,250 jobs.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation oversees $10bn of investment in clean power that has done little other than give Australia the fourth highest electricity prices in the world.  This is the equivalent 125,000 jobs.

The government provided a one-off grant of $444m to the Great Barrier Reef Authority in 2018 when the authority had only six full-time members.  This grant should be recalled, to the value of 5500 jobs.

The ABC's property portfolios in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne are worth about $522m.  Having the public broadcaster lease premises while selling these would help save more than 6000 jobs.

Selling the National Broadband Network could retrieve just less than $10bn, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office, the equivalent to a further 125,000 jobs.

These are more than just numbers.  These are lives and livelihoods.

Every effort must be made to keep Australians in their jobs.  A job and a life are more valuable than a windmill or a solar panel, or the ability for a retired public service employee to play golf three times a week instead of twice.

The longer someone is unemployed, the harder it is to get back into work.

Maintaining the relationship between workers and their employers will play the most important role in the nation's recovery.

Yes, many will rely on unemployment benefits.  But more than a few of those who now enter the queues outside Centrelink will never work again.  The bureaucrats and experts who are re-engineering our society and economy but who themselves might never stand in an unemployment line seem less than fully aware of this stark fact.

The financial costs of unemployment are obvious.  But the social, cultural and psychological costs are substantial and, in many cases, permanent.

A job is more than a pay cheque;  it is source of meaning, dignity and self-sufficiency.  People who do not work are often unable to afford their own home, involve themselves in their communities or build a family.  The impacts of joblessness can be felt for generations, as the children of the unemployed fall behind at school and must endure the domestic pressures associated with that loss of income.  Some might even come to the conclusion that they have little to live for and nothing to offer the world.

Equality of sacrifice is required to get Australia through this unprecedented challenge.  We must all dig in.

In This Peril, Remember Australia's Success Secret

Far too many people have spent their leisure time watching post-apocalyptic television shows.  At the first sign of trouble they all immediately went shopping.  I always imagined that having a stock of ammunition and Krugerrands would be essential for the end of days.  But no.  Toilet paper.

Without wanting to downplay the seriousness of the medical crisis facing the world it is important to talk about the broader implications of the crisis.  A lot of people are using the opportunity to peddle their pet hobby horses.

No.  This is not the end of globalisation.  Nor should it be.  Some are making mischief by pointing to the medical epicentre being in China.  Irrespective of what one may think of the Chinese government, there is no justification for racist outbursts against the Chinese people.  Oppressive government is a human rights tragedy and the Chinese people are victims too.

The medical crisis does not demonstrate that free trade, open capital accounts and liberal immigration policies are a mistake.  People taking to social media to suggest that closed economies could have better protected themselves are plain wrong.  The fact of the matter is that toilet paper is manufactured in Australia.  I have yet to see a shortage of imported manufactured goods.

The arguments for free trade remain as strong today as they did last year.  The notion of comparative advantage is just as true today as it was in the 19th century.  Australia exports agricultural goods, minerals and services to the rest of the world in return for manufactured goods.  Think of our education exports ― we charge foreigners top dollar to sit in classes that we would be offering to Australian kids anyway.  We sell coal and iron ore that we could never use ourselves to foreigners ― again charging top dollar.

In return we enjoy one of the highest living standards in the world.  Ever-increasing leisure time with varied entertainment.  Trade has made us rich.  Those riches allow us to spend more money of our own health and well-being.  Yes the COVID-19 virus targets the elderly and immuno-compromised.  Large numbers of such people are sustained by our wealth.  Poorer societies tend to have fewer such individuals.

Arguments that the crisis demonstrates that "we have become too reliant on China" are just silly.  Any trading entity is reliant upon having paying customers.  This is a criticism that has especially been levelled at universities.  Usually by the same people who otherwise complain that universities are too reliant on government and should be more market orientated and business-like.  Intellectual consistency is often in short supply.  Having paying customers is always a good thing.

Hand in hand with anti-globalisation arguments is a call for greater government intervention in the economy and across society.  The "strong-man takes charge" theory of government has been a poor investment throughout human history.  Yes, the Australian government was slow to respond to the emerging crisis.  This is a feature of liberal democracy, not a bug.

Ironically, once government started seriously responding, panic levels increased.  People seem to think that government has better information and greater knowledge and understanding than everyone else does.  Sometimes, but not normally in an open democratic society.  Scott Morrison telling everyone to stop hoarding was good advice.  Supermarket chiefs telling us for days before that was good advice too.

If this isn't a story about free trade being risky, what does the crisis tell us?  Seems to me that there is a profound trust problem in our society.  Many people do not trust that the free market is resilient enough to provide for their needs in a time of crisis.  People also do not trust politicians and other leaders in civil society when they urge calm.  It is something of a paradox that many of those same people want "strong government", while not trusting the government they already have.

There is a fragility that underpins our prosperity.  Maybe because elites have spent the past 10 years or so bagging the business sector.  Non-stop criticism of business as being monopolists, profiteers, crooks, tax-evaders and the like have all paid off.  We have become seduced by prosperity.  However many years of GDP growth have come to mean that there is no level of red tape, or green tape, or taxation that the economy cannot bear.

So this time lets be smarter than what we were after the GFC.  This is not an economic crisis per se, but let's use the opportunity to be thankful that we are very wealthy, and reflect on why we are wealthy.  More importantly, let's stay wealthy.

How The Coronavirus Response Shows We Have Lost Our Fundamental Values

Australia's response to the coronavirus threat reveals that we have lost our fundamental values.  While our nation is faced with what is arguably the most significant peacetime threat since the great depression, it is worth reflecting on how we came together to overcome that tremendous obstacle.

As supermarkets witness brawls over toiletries, the Morrison government has unveiled a $189 billion stimulus package in an effort to keep our ailing economy ticking over.  The government has also taken a stand to discourage panic buying and ensure that enough supplies are left on the shelves for the most vulnerable members of our community.

That such advice is even necessary is an indictment on our current lack of social cohesion.  Hoarding demonstrates a lack of trust, not only in supply chains, but in your fellow Australians.  Thanks in part to the transformative power of globalisation and various demand-side manipulations of what capitalism once was, we no longer see ourselves of members of a community with reciprocal obligations, but merely as atomised consumers hell-bent on acquiring goods beyond their immediate utility. 

This stands in stark contrast to the spirit of self-sacrifice with which we met head-on the great depression.  Australia entered the stock market crash of 1929 in a position of special risk.  Our economy was reliant on loans from British banks, our workplace laws were rigid and job-destroying, and we relied on agricultural exports which were subject to frail international markets. 

In desperation, radical politicians like Jack Lang called for the country to repudiate our debts and prioritise our own immediate interests above all else.  Instead, the middle class insisted that repaying debts was a matter of personal pride and put their own savings into a campaign to convert a government loan and salvage our credit rating.  In the conservative populism that characterised the "All for Australia Leagues" economic considerations were largely secondary, what mattered was the moral imperative of Australia maintaining its dignity.

Nevertheless, the economic ramifications would be huge.  The mild-mannered former-Tasmanian Premier Joseph Lyons quit the Labor Party for even toying with the idea of "credit creation".  Embodying the national mood, he would lead the United Australia Party to a decisive election victory in 1931 and follow through with a policy of cutting spending and prioritising paying down our bills.

The result was that despite our acute vulnerability Australia recovered from the great depression faster than the United States with F.D.R.'s "New Deal".  Financial confidence was gradually restored because the people had upheld the sanctity of contracts and that a moral understanding of obligation would underpin every transaction.

Ninety years later, Australia enters this newest crisis in an equivalent position of special risk.  We are still reliant on international markets like that for education, our industrial relations system is still an inefficient mess, and all of this is compounded by electricity prices that have devastated manufacturing with all the ferocity of a wall street crash.  Government debt is perhaps not as bad as it could have been, but artificially low interest rates have destroyed the incentive to save and seen individuals max out their credit.

Rather than the people bailing out a government loan, we have the government trying to bail out the people through cash handouts.  The rationale is that personal responsibility or pride matter less than consumer confidence, but it is difficult to have long term confidence in a system that deliberately eschews the idea of being held accountable for an obligation you have entered into.

Now is the time to take stock and consider what we can do to rebuild ties of community.  This last summer we saw the tragedy of the bushfires politicised and exploited in a manner that would have mortified the ghosts of Australians past.  This is because they upheld old-fashioned concepts like shame, itself an expression of personal responsibility.

The solution is not to repudiate capitalism or even foreign trade, both of which are fundamental to the prosperity that has long defined the lucky country.  But what we need to understand is that these things only work when they operate in a moral framework where people are held accountable for their actions.

It is this accountability which makes community possible, because everyone knows that the rest will uphold their end of the bargain.

Listen To The Experts And Elites, But Remember They've Got Form

The Prime Minister's call for Australians to heed the advice of his government's experts may fall on deaf ears because the experts and elites have let this country down so many times before,

In his press conference last Wednesday, Scott Morrison said "if you hear it from me, if you hear it from a Premier, if you hear it from [Chief Medical Officer] Dr [Brendan] Murphy, if you hear it from those official sources and websites, that's the information you should follow."  This is likely wise advice in the current health panic.  But Australians may instead reflect on the many times the government experts and elites have been flat out wrong or misleading.

In April 2019, the Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the country was "back in the black", meaning the Budget would be brought back into surplus for the first time in a decade.  Except a surplus was never delivered, and now never will be by this Government.

In May 2012, then Treasurer Wayne Swan said that the Labor government had "delivered" a Budget surplus.  But by December the surplus was abandoned, and an expected $2.5 billion surplus became an $18.8 billion deficit.

In August 2010, five days before the national election, then prime minister Julia Gillard said there would be "no carbon tax under the government I lead".  But then proceeded to implement a carbon tax after Labor secured minority-government following the election.

We were told as recently as 2013 by the then Labor government that the National Broadband Network would cost $37.4 billion.  But that cost has now ballooned out to $90 billion-plus ― for a service that is inferior to that which many Australians previously enjoyed.

Our government told us in February 2019 that the new submarine program would "protect Australia's security and prosperity".  Instead, the program will cost at least $50 billion and won't deliver one single operational submarine until at least 2036.

We were told the new green jobs would replace the old manufacturing jobs.  Instead, we have lost close to 100,000 jobs in the energy-intensive manufacturing alone in the past two decades, and the best estimate from the left-leaning The Australia Institute is that we might see just 60,000 green jobs in a decade's time.

Morrison told us that Angus Taylor would be the "Minister for getting Electricity Prices Down".  But Australia remains in the Paris Climate Agreement and Australia has the fourth highest electricity prices in the developed world.

We were told that superannuation was needed to provide for a sustainable income retirement system.  But instead, at least 9.5 per cent of workers' wages are confiscated by the government and passed onto financiers who charge a cumulative total of $35 billion in fees every year.

We were told that mass migration would be good for our economy.  Instead, GDP per capita grew by just 0.7 per cent over the past year, which is about one-third over the overall economic growth rate, and wages growth in the private sector are stagnant.

On top of these economic and financial failures, Australians are today more divided than ever.

The most significant moment in the Prime Minister's press conference was when he said "stop it!" to people who were hoarding supplies.  The Prime Minister went on to say that "this is not who we are as a people".  Except, perhaps it is.

After spending two decades of thinking of new ways to divide this country, such as through identity politics, the elites now seem surprised that our social fabric is weak and fragile.

The most obvious manifestation of this is the unwillingness of some to get to the back of the queue and wait their turn ― which is one of the most important practical expressions of the egalitarian ethos of this country.  It is little wonder why this egalitarian spirit has been crushed when one of the biggest ideas of the political class is to permanently divide Australians by race through an Indigenous-only body embedded in the constitution.

Our collective panic, social fragmentation and weak and vulnerable economy is laid at the feet of the elites and the courtier class that surrounds them.

It will not be the public servants, the bureaucrats, the university administrators, and those employed in quasi-government institutions like the Australian Human Rights Commission who will suffer.  Instead, many will emerge wealthier and more powerful than ever before as new laws create new powers to be conferred upon the experts.

It will be the small business owners, the labourers, the front-line staff, the families with a mortgage, small-land owning farmers, and the self-funded retirees who will suffer first and suffer most.

In the United States, the global financial crisis and the government's response created the Tea Party revolt which ultimately gave the world President Trump.

The first shot was fired when the unknown David Brat defeated Eric Cantor who was the Republican House Majority Leader in the Republican Primary in 2014.  No one in the political establishment saw it coming.

Whether the economic fallout from the coronavirus will create the same febrility in Australia is a question that cannot yet be answered.

But the constantly wrong, and, at worst, misleading predictions by the elites and the experts has created a culture of mistrust that will take longer to fix than the economy.

Virus Crisis Signals End Of The Road For The “Lollipop Economy”

However this crisis ends, the era of Australia's "lollipop economy" is over.  Not in our lifetime will a worker ever again be paid $180,000 a year to stand and hold a traffic sign at a construction site.  (Which is the amount traffic controllers can earn under the Queensland government's minimum labour requirements on state-funded infrastructure projects.)

If there's one thing that sums up what's happened to the Australian economy after 29 years without a recession, it's the symbolism of someone holding a Stop/Go sign being paid twice as much as a school teacher.

It's uncertain how Australia's highly regulated, highly indebted, high cost and low productivity economy will withstand this global pandemic.

The potential consequences of what's happening are enormous.  Some commentators are greeting the pandemic as the opportunity for the public to begin "trusting the experts" again.  Certainly, that's one direction the crisis could take.  The exact opposite reaction is also possible, and community trust in public institutions and the authority of government could be eroded even further.

There's the very real possibility that the public might realise that many of the things the politicians have spent the last decade talking about are in fact utterly irrelevant.  Climate change being the most obvious example.

Similarly, the public might come to the not unreasonable conclusion that much of what the government now does, and what the government requires regulators to do, has done practically nothing to improve the productive capacity of the country.  The product of nearly three decades of uninterrupted economic growth is that red tape is now Australia's largest industry.

The almost-guaranteed recession the country is about to suffer will make a few other things crystal clear.  It will reveal what everyone has always known about our industrial relations system, namely that its primary purpose is to increase the wages and conditions of those in work.  Australia's industrial relations system, which includes us having literally the world's highest minimum wage, does nothing to encourage employment.

Something else a recession will uncover is that Australia's compulsory superannuation system is a fraud.

There's no justification for compulsory superannuation, and that's especially the case now.  If one partner in a couple with children and a mortgage lose their job, the other partner who's lucky enough to still be in work needs the 9.5% of their income that the government confiscates immediately, not when they retire in 30 or 40 years.

The superannuation industry is right to be concerned about proposals for the government to allow early access to their superannuation balances for people who've become unemployed because that will be the beginning of the end for compulsory superannuation ― as it should be.

Even if compulsory superannuation is not abolished immediately, there is now no way any government will increase the compulsory contribution rate.

This crisis has already revealed Australia's frayed and fraying social bonds.  When the Prime Minister appealed to people to stop hoarding food and toiletries he said "We're all in this together".  He's right.

The problem is though that since the 1970s with the invention of the concept of multiculturalism and with the rise of "identity politics" more recently, the notion that Australia is a single community with every citizen being in solidarity with every other citizen, has been undermined and attacked at every opportunity.

No government now talks about how all Australians are equal and the same.  Instead, all of the emphasis in the public discussion is on how diverse and how different we all are ― and how our political and legal systems should accommodate our differences of background, gender, race, and so on.

We're taught Australia is a nation of tribes ― and such thinking leads to selfishness, not selflessness.

Up until a few weeks ago some people had assumed that as Australia's international competitiveness continued to fall the country would spend the coming decades slowly sinking into perpetual decline.  The nation's condition would never be quite bad enough to be recognised as a crisis, and so the public and the politicians they elect would never actually be sufficiently motivated to do something about it.

Well, recent events have proved that particular prediction for the trajectory of the country's fortunes spectacularly wrong.

The nation is now facing an economic, and potentially a social, "banana republic" situation ― times 10.