Getting Australia back to work

My age is 88.

Billions of dollars have been spent in a successful endeavour to save my generation from death by Covid19.

While grateful for the compassion shown to us, the fact is that younger generations will bear a huge burden in repaying the massive national debt that has been incurred on our behalf.

In addition, we are very aware that, for many of them, their livelihood has been destroyed and their hope has been crushed.

They should not be in this intolerable situation and I, and others of my age, bear a great sense of guilt, but we have a willing intent to repay some of the debt incurred for our wellbeing.

So, on behalf of older Australians, I want to suggest that this plan be implemented as a matter of urgency and that we be given significant work to do to ensure that recovery is achieved quickly.

Starting Point

It is estimated that, when the Covid19 pandemic has been brought under control, 100 Australians will have died from the virus. This number is minute when compared to the carnage on the battlefields of WorldWar1 where 60000 of our finest had their young lives wiped out at a time when our population was only three million.

Yet, our expenditure, per head of population, on the Covid19 War exceeds that of that Great War of 1914 as it does also for the War of 1939.

Nevertheless, what has been done is done and nothing can be gained by a pointless blame game as it has been carried out with good intent & under huge pressure.

These recommendations can be urgently implemented via uniform legislation passed urgently by all Australian Parliaments within weeks so that Australians can get back to work by the earliest possible dates.

Physical Distancing

As the world will be hit with increasing regularity by more viruses of the deadly nature of Covid19, we must permanently enshrine Physical Distancing into Australian life so the current crisis does not happen again.

It must be made illegal to deliberately stand or sit within 1.5 metres of another person except in our own homes. Policing this will be difficult but in extreme cases, this can be enforced by citizen arrest and subsequent court fines.

Seating on all public transport, especially on planes and cruise liners, must be refigured to adhere to a 1.5 metre rule and fares should be raised accordingly to cover extra costs involved. This is a price that is worth paying. However, demand for transport will drop as people decide to permanently work from home and long-distance travel is replaced by virtual meetings.

This will apply also to Schools, Universities, Theatres, Churches, Sporting Arenas, Convention Centres and any other places where people gather in public.

In addition, handshakes, hugs & kissing in public must be banned even though these three habits are a long-standing element of our Australian culture as they are the major conveyors of disease.

 People will convey their greetings and affection with words.

Small Business

Every small business must open within one month from now, with owners having to guarantee that anyone entering their premises must use, on the way in and out, sanitisers that the business provides.

They must also guarantee that staff and customers will keep physical distances of 1.5 metres and that doors must be closed temporarily when this limit is reached.

The same rule will apply for those who operate industries or logistical operations of any kind.

Jobs

Significant public funding must be allocated this year to every local government in Australia to enable them to immediately employ local skilled tradespersons, plus unemployed locals of any profession who are out of work or underemployed and are willing to be their temporary apprentices.

They will, for example, repaint or renovate or expand public buildings, improve and extend civic gardens, upgrade sporting facilities, build more walkways, repair gutters, upgrade hygiene of public toilets and cooperate with State Governments in doing similar work at schools and hospitals etc.

Especially, they can remove and destroy all plastic from the land and water of our continent.

This initiative is limited only by our imagination and our ability to quickly plan and organise projects.

A minimum of 100 billion dollars will be needed to achieve this but it will mean that we will have first class public assets all over Australia as the result of creating employment rather than increasing welfare handouts. This cost would replace the extension of some of the current stimulus packages.

While this project is underway, it will be vital to use the time to have major infrastructure projects become ‘shovel ready’.

Then we can create an Australia that ‘makes things’ again in the same way as we became self-sufficient as a manufacturer in World War 2 before globalisation destroyed those skills.

Pollution

Covid19 has occurred because we have all irresponsibly polluted our world for a long time.

An initial initiative can be to create policies that must be urgently implemented to remove personal pollution from Australia.

Standards must be legislated ensuring that all buildings, especially homes, and every vehicle of every type, are free of pollution, including air, water & energy usage.

Small government grants will be needed to help those on lower incomes and operators of small business to meet these new standards.

This will create more employment.

It will also ensure that there is no pollution in which a virus can form in the years ahead.

Motivation

In impressively restricting deaths to 100, the Federal Government alone has spent 230 billion dollars on health services and stimulus packages.

This is 2.3 billon dollars per death, the most extraordinary health cost in world history.

If we correctly assert that, without action, 1000 would have certainly died, the cost would have been 230 million dollars per death.

10,000 deaths may have been a possibility. This would amount to 23 million dollars per deceased person.

This is not really a justifiable financial solution to a pandemic.

But the figures become far worse when we add the financial packages that State and Local Governments have spent.

Then, add the loss of revenue for business and workers and the figures reach staggering dimensions.

On top of this is the horrendous social cost of all the related issues such as mental health, suicide, domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, collapse of small business and the humiliation of bankruptcy, all of which is almost beyond accurate costing.

However, I will endeavour to calculate how many jobs were saved by that expenditure as soon as data is available. Regrettably, it may not be many when we offset it against many thousands of casual jobs that were lost at the same time.

Finally, to put it into further perspective, we must remind ourselves that in the past 12 months there were 1154 fatalities on Australian roads, which is 12 times more than Covid19 deaths, yet we did little about it.

Clearly, there are many issues that our nation should address far beyond the current pandemic and the cost will be enormous.

Quite clearly, the time to build a new Australia is right now.

Any delay is unjustifiable.

Oldies like me have a responsibility to be out there in the forefront of the battle.

It is the minimum we can do to repay our debt to Australia.