O75 Public Administration

Infected patients mingled with others at death home

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Original article by Kieran Gair, Natasha Robinson
The Australian – Page: 1 & 4 : 5-May-20

The Newmarch House aged-care facility in western Sydney continues to attract scrutiny over its handling of a coronavirus outbreak. Amongst other things, questions have been raised as to why residents who have been not been diagnosed with the virus were allowed to remain in a wing of the facility with those who have been infected, and why the infected residents have not been moved to the nearby Nepean Hospital. Some 37 residents have been infected with the virus and 15 have died, while 26 staff members of the Anglicare-operated facility have contracted the respiratory illness.

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ANGLICARE AUSTRALIA

Ardern invited to PM’s bubble

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Original article by Graham Richardson, Rosie Lewis
The Australian – Page: 1 & 4 : 5-May-20

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will join Australia’s national cabinet meeting on 5 May via a video link. The meeting will discuss a proposal to allow people to travel between the two countries without needing to be quarantined for 14 days. Ardern says that her country would have more to gain economically from resuming trans-Tasman travel; Australia accounted for 17.1 per cent of New Zealand’s exports in 2016. New Zealand recently eased its coronavirus lockdown restrictions, and further restrictions are expected to be lifted shortly.

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NEW ZEALAND. DEPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET

Cost of Covid: $4bn a week

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Original article by Geoff Chambers
The Australian – Page: 1 & 6 : 5-May-20

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will use a National Press Club speech on 5 May to warn that the coronavirus pandemic will reduce GDP by about $50bn in the June quarter. However, he will contend that the GDP hit could have been around $120bn if Australia had imposed the more restrictive lockdowns of some European countries. Frydenberg will add that economic activity will be reduced by nearly $4bn for every week that lockdown restrictions remain in place, and that the economic impact of the pandemic would have been much worse without initiatives such as the JobKeeper scheme.

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AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE TREASURY

Roy Morgan’s unemployment measure for April shows 2.16 million Australians were unemployed (15.3% of the workforce) with an additional 1.32 million (9.4%) under-employed

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Original article by Roy Morgan
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 4-May-20

Roy Morgan’s unemployment measure for April shows that in total a massive 3.5 million (24.7%) Australians are now either unemployed or under-employed. This is 439,000 fewer than the 3.92 million (27.4%) during the last two weeks of March (March 20-31, 2020), immediately before the Federal Government’s JobKeeper program was announced. Roy Morgan’s unemployment figure of 15.3% for April is now almost three times higher than the current ABS estimate for March 2020 of 5.2%. The ABS figure for March was based on interviews conducted in reference to early March (pre shut-downs) and did not include data related to the situation in late March (post shut-downs).

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ROY MORGAN LIMITED

Covid kickstart: states fire up

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Original article by David Penberthy, Paul Garvey, Simon Benson
The Australian – Page: 1 & 2 : 4-May-20

The easing of coronavirus lockdown restrictions will be considered by the national cabinet earlier than expected, due to the rapid take-up of the CovidSafe app. However, the South Australian government will relax some restrictions, such as allowing children to visit playgrounds and skate parks, while travel within the state may be permitted within days. Premier Steven Marshall says the state is on track to eliminate the virus rather than simply suppressing it. Western Australia recently permitted residents to gather in groups of 10 and lifted restrictions on some recreational activities. Meanwhile, the eastern states are keeping lockdown restrictions in place for now.

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SOUTH AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE PREMIER AND CABINET

Good news and bad debt

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Original article by Terry McCrann
Sunday Herald Sun – Page: 63 : 3-May-20

The advice from Australian Banking Association CEO Anna Bligh that "so far" more than 320,000 home loan borrowers and 170,000 businesses have had loan repayments deferred is a mix of ‘good’ news and ‘bad’ news. Clearly the numbers who need repayments deferred "will increase". Some "good news" for the government is Roy Morgan’s April estimate of Australia’s unemployed and under-employed, down 439,000 on the last 2 weeks in March – however, it only dropped because of the government’s JobKeeper scheme. If JobKeeper numbers were added to those who are unemployed and under-employed then "real joblessness" is probably around a third of the workforce, with not one person from the public sector ‘out-of-work’. Even with Australian banks proactively playing their part the post-virus reality is not going to be "a walk in the park" – assuming it is allowed!

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AUSTRALIAN BANKING ASSOCIATION, ROY MORGAN LIMITED

Business cashflow assistance tops $6bn

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Original article by Geoff Chambers, Patrick Commins
The Australian – Page: 4 : 1-May-20

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the federal government’s tax-free cashflow payments have assisted employers to remain in business during the coronavirus pandemic. New figures show that some 343,211 small businesses and non-profit organisations had collectively received $6.09bn worth of cashflow payments by 28 April. Eligible businesses are entitled to receive payments of between $20,000 and $100,000; the average amount received to date is $17,700 per business. The government estimates that about 720,000 businesses will be eligible for the payments.

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AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET

Aussie workers among highest taxed in OECD

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Original article by Tom McIlroy
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 10 : 1-May-20

New figures show that workers in OECD member nations had an average income tax rate of 15.8 per cent in 2019. However, Australian workers on the average wage paid an income tax rate of 23.6 per cent. Denmark, Iceland and Belgium were the only OECD nations that had a higher average income tax rate. Grant Wardell-Johnson of KPMG notes that personal income tax accounts for nearly half of Australia’s tax base.

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ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT, KPMG AUSTRALIA PTY LTD

All the way with ScoMo on China

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Original article by Ben Packham, Cameron Stewart
The Australian – Page: 1 & 6 : 1-May-20

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is supporting Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s push for an independent review into the origins of COVID-19. Pompeo says all nations should back Australia’s call for such a review, while he attacked China for threatening economic retaliation against Australia over its review push. Billionaires Andrew Forrest and Kerry Stokes have been criticised by security experts and MPs over their comments that Morrison to back off on his call for a review, with Stokes and Forrest reminded that they should not confuse Australia’s national interest with their own commercial interests.

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UNITED STATES. DEPT OF STATE, SEVEN WEST MEDIA LIMITED – ASX SWM

Government payments outweigh wage slump

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Original article by Matthew Cranston
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 4 : 29-Apr-20

New figures from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia highlight the impact of the coronavirus on the labour market. Its analysis shows that there has been a 50 per cent increase in the number of CBA bank accounts that are receiving JobSeeker payments. Senior economist Gareth Aird says the increase in government benefits that have been paid since the onset of the pandemic has been greater than the fall in wages and salaries paid into CBA accounts to date. Meanwhile, CBA expects the savings rate to rise significantly in the June quarter.

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COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA – ASX CBA