Are we still in this together?

George Kapnias
30 September 2020 1:40pm

In anticipation of this year’s delayed Federal Budget due to be handed down by Josh Frydenberg on Tuesday, 6 October, I was reminded of one of the great movies of the 20th century, The Shawshank Redemption.

In it, upon discovering Andy Dufresne’s daring escape from Shawshank Prison, Warden Norton famously bellows, “It’s a miracle. The man got up and vanished, like a fart in the wind!”

After 19 years of purgatory, Andy Dufresne threw caution to the wind, backed his instinct and punted on hope. He assured his fellow inmate Red (Morgan Freeman), that “hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing, and no good thing dies.”

If your parents were born pre-WWII, you no doubt have grown up as I have, hearing endless ‘happy-go-lucky’ stories of real pain and suffering – war, poverty, starvation, torture, betrayal, and in many cases death. It was just part of their daily routine.

Courtesy of their hard work, sacrifice, determination and good fortune in choosing a bountiful second home called Australia, we second-generation Greeks and our children have had to rely on Hollywood to get a sense of what purgatory could possibly be like.

All the while, our parents resolutely held on to hope.

Hope that they would survive WWII, the subsequent civil war and obtain a basic, even rudimentary education. Hope that the seasons would be favourable and that there would be enough to eat through each coming winter.

In migrating to Australia, they hoped to realise their modest dreams and to a large extent, the Greek community of Australia has managed to deliver in spades.

Since WWII, Australia has ridden a wave of peace and prosperity almost unimaginable at any other time in human history.

2020 is as close to purgatory that we second- and third-generation Australian-Greeks have had to endure.

In 2020, many businesses have been shut or have been severely impacted by a downturn in scale and severity not seen in Australia since the Great Depression. Jobs have been lost and savings ravaged.

Our daily lives have been thrown out of orbit dealing with lockdown – home schooling, working from home and living with a curfew.

Often, the physical and financial constraints are just the opening stanza. There is the social dislocation, loneliness, depression and for the elderly, a fear of walking out of their front door.

Throughout 2020, by leaning heavily on the communal credit card, Governments have been capable of insulating society from the full impact of Coronavirus.

Small businesses like my own have been massively assisted by generous State Government Grants, mandated rent reductions and deferred bank repayments. All the while, my best “customer” over the past six months has been the ATO (Australian Taxation Office). Any money we forward to it seems to miraculously boomerang back into the business bank account.

Governments have gone to town with all manner of assistance and subsidies across society. At times, up to half of Victoria’s working-age population has been on Job Keeper.

So far, so good.

But I fear that 2020 may be just the entrée. Hence, my anticipation in watching this year’s Budget.

For some, the next episode of MasterChef or The Block constitutes compulsory viewing. In my household, the Treasurer’s annual Budget address and the Opposition leader’s subsequent reply two days later, fall into this category.

Over the past seven months, mistakes have been made including failings by the Victorian State Government that according to Frydenberg, “amount to the greatest and most costly public policy failure in Australian history!” That’s all.

When asked about these failings in the Hotel Quarantine Inquiry, relevant State Government Ministers and top public servants have variously shown to be either “on the bottle”, intoxicated by amnesia pills or they simply take the Victorian public for absolute mugs.

You’d think, to be worthy of their half million-plus salaries, Heads of Departments would have the basic capacity to refer to minutes and records that could help jog their memory.

These are the real faceless men of our democracy.

Amazingly it seems that COVID-19 has been able to supplant reality with brazen “new world” ineptitude that would make Yes Minister blush.

In the end, (Victorian Health minister) Jenny Mikakos – who seemingly was no more or less culpable – was sacrificed to the populist Gods who have been baying for blood.

Speaking of accountability, has anyone seen or heard from Bishop Ezekiel to account or at least apologise for the calamity that has unfolded at St Basil’s?

October 6 looms large. The Government has eventually got to get the economy out from under the doona and ignite it to life with massive stimulus that will create confidence and jobs – real, full-time, long term jobs and thousands of them.

And a slavish tax cut to titillate the upper-middle class simply won’t cut the mustard.

Those who have been able to bridge the digital divide, retain their jobs and who can continue on as “normal”, may be wondering what the fuss is all about.

A world away from Zoom meetings, a record number of six million (!) Australians are currently relying on the generosity of food banks just to get by. And just as it was in the last recession, where blue-collar workers were disproportionately smashed and permanently displaced, so too this time waves of people are potentially going to be hung out to dry.

In most cases, their only crime is to be young or in people-movement dependent businesses.

It was reported that more than 100,000 jobs were created in August. The overwhelming majority however were part-time or in the gig economy – delivering pizzas. Somehow, this was enough for our plucky Treasurer to sing the praises of a recovery of sorts.

Welcome to the makings of Australia’s very own “Precariat Class” – Australia’s own version of America’s trailer trash. Is this the best he can hope for?

I live in hope that the message from the coalface has been received upon high and that our Treasurer realises the magnitude of devastation that awaits in 2021 if Government does not massively stimulate the economy, particularly those hardest hit by this recession. And I hope that society – not the markets – are front and center of this Government’s priorities.

Like Andy Dufresne, I hope that our new-found sense of civic responsibility will percolate to the front of mind and guide our leaders to call upon their better angels.

On election night our Prime Minister trumpeted that he “has always believed in miracles”.

I hope that one of these miracles will be the capacity of our leaders to put behind them the politics of division, of envy, of market first and trickle down and of once again pandering to the aspirational set.

Otherwise our chance for a sustained, equitable and society-wide recovery will disappear like the proverbial “fart in the wind”.