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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am.

Summer has provided everyone with a break from politics, even our politicians. But as they return, they’ll need to face up to problems that have been long in the making. The pandemic is still with us, and clues from the Northern hemisphere point towards variants that authorities will have to keep a close eye on. And this week, we have been warned that inequality around the world got worse throughout the pandemic.

Today, columnist for The Saturday Paper, Chris Wallace on how COVID 19 made the wealthy even richer and why we can’t be complacent about the virus.

It’s Friday, January 20.

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RUBY:

Chris, this week some new information came out about wealth inequality and it was pretty alarming. This global study by Oxfam, it found that the richest Australians - so the 1% of people with the most wealth - they got even richer in the last couple of years. So tell me just how well this 1% did during the pandemic and how it was that this happened?

CHRIS:

Ruby The Oxfam Survival of the Richest report was a, you know, wake up call is a terrible cliche, isn't it? But my God, you can't read it without being knocked back on your heels about just how seriously inequality widened in the world during the pandemic.

Archival Tape – News Anchor 1:

“Now, many Australians are seeing cost of living pressures starting to really bite, and a new report suggests that Australia's richest 1% has now amassed ten times more wealth than the bottom 50% combined…”

Archival Tape – News Reporter 1:

“$42 trillion worth of global wealth has been created and most of that, nearly two thirds has gone to the richest 1%...”

CHRIS:

The Oxfam report drawing on data from, amongst other places, the World Bank, shows that Australia is having an extreme wealth polarisation since the beginning of 2020.

Archival Tape – News Anchor 2:

“The 'Survival of the Richest' data from Oxfam also shows that both extreme wealth and extreme poverty have increased simultaneously for the first time in 25 years...”

Archival Tape – News Reporter 2:

“Since the pandemic began. Australia's wealthiest have collectively doubled their fortune, earning around $205 million a day…”

CHRIS:

We have 11 new billionaires in Australia just in those three years, and just 42 Australians now have a combined wealth of nearly $236 billion. That's just 42 people, $236 billion in Australia.

Archival Tape – News Anchor 2:

“Australian billionaire wealth is 61% higher than it was before the pandemic. How is that the case?...”

CHRIS:

The other thing about the Oxfam report is that it looked at inflation rates around the world and found that booming corporate profits are in many cases the biggest single reason for rising inflation. Right now, central banks around the world, including our own, have been ramping up interest rates. Bizarrely, this is all about putting up the price of money and putting up the price of everything as a result, in order to, in the end, achieve lower prices in the economy. Madness, especially when you look at the Oxfam report, which found in Australia's case, for example, 60% of our current inflation is being driven by booming corporate profits.

RUBY:

And this report, it made some recommendations about how to address growing wealth inequality. And Oxfam is calling on governments not just here in Australia, around the world, to stop cutting taxes for the wealthy, but here in Australia. We of course have the stage three tax cuts which do the opposite of what Oxfam is calling for; those cuts, they directly benefit wealthy Australians and there has been growing criticism about that over the summer from the Greens and from Senator David Pocock. So tell me about how Labor is handling that.

CHRIS:

Well, that's right. The report says that billionaires have seen huge wealth gains during the pandemic. A flood of public money has been pumped into the world economy, into the Australian economy by governments trying to keep the show on the road. The report points out that while that's been kind of necessary to support employment in the populations of those countries, it's driven up asset prices ridiculously with these huge wealth effects at the top of the tree. And of course, you know, as we all know, trickle down is the great joke on the rest of us. It never does trickle down. And, you know, you raise the stage three tax cuts, which was like a gigantic bomb the Morrison government buried in the future for the next government to deal with. It's been criticised from the beginning by pretty much every economic analyst who knows they're unnecessary, they're gratuitous. They put public money, returned public money back to private hands in exactly the wrong place. Instead of trying to repair the fabric of Australian public services, health services, education services, fixing aged care. All those things we need urgently fixing. Now, of course the Albanese government needs them fixed too. They need them fixed not only because of the practical politics involved, but because it aligns with Labor values. And you know, Labor isn't about to sit by and see people gratuitously suffer, but it's stuck with its election promise of going through with the stage three tax cuts, even though they know every analyst, knows any voter who's got any common sense, knows they're not necessary.

RUBY:

Hmm. And Chris, as we mentioned, this growth in wealth among the richest. It was recorded during the pandemic years, and COVID 19 is very much still an issue for our policymakers. And in the northern hemisphere, we're seeing new variants of concern emerge and cases begin to pick up. And what we've seen in the past is that what happens with COVID 19 in the Northern hemisphere, it's usually repeated here in Australia a few months later. So do you get the sense that the Australian Government is prepared for or equipped to grapple with that in the coming months?

CHRIS:

COVID 19 is a problem of a different kind. COVID is in a crisis here in Australia right now. I've got a direct message on Twitter from a former MP this week who was very agitated about Australian government ministers saying heartfelt messages of condolence about the Australian Myron Love who died unfortunately in a Nepalese plane crash this week. And this MP said, you know, as justified as that, he's as sad as that case is, why are government ministers talking publicly about that? But not a word about the 417 Australians who died from COVID 19 this week in Australia.

There's this incredible, weird conspiracy of silence amongst politicians, state and federal, amongst journalists who cannot see what is in plain sight, which is that the COVID 19 pandemic problem is gigantically bigger in Australia now than it has ever been, and the Albanese government is doing almost nothing about it, along with its state peer governments, which are nearly all Labor. It's completely amazing.

RUBY:

We'll be back after this.

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RUBY:

Chris, The World Health Organisation is warning policymakers around the world against being complacent on COVID 19. But when it comes to health policy in Australia, is that exactly what we're saying? Complacency set in?

CHRIS:

Complacency, absolutely. And look, you know, it's Australia, it's summer. Who doesn't want to be kicking about having a great time not thinking about a pandemic. But there is extraordinary complacency in the Albanese government and from, I've got to say, mostly Labor governments, state Labor governments around the nation about where COVID is at all. The messaging is it's mild, don't worry, go and have fun. The truth is the government has dismantled, largely, the measurement system that would enable us to have an accurate handle on what the infection rate is. The most reliable metric at the minute is actually the death rate. And in the last six months, Australia has switched from a reasonably good record to having one of the highest per capita death rates in the year.

Archival Tape – News Host 1:

“New figures show that more than 100 COVID related deaths were recorded in aged care over the New year…”

CHRIS:

Last week, 417 people died from Covid in Australia. That's colossally bad.

Archival Tape – News Reporter 3:

“The latest data from the Department of Health shows 120 COVID related deaths in residential aged care facilities in the week to January 5…”

CHRIS:

Now governments are responsible for doing something about it and Health Minister Mark Butler, you've got to say, is doing as little as he can about the current transmission rate.

Archival Tape – Laura Tingle:

“Mark Butler, thanks for your time tonight…”

CHRIS:

I don't know if you saw the interview with Laura Tingle on 7:30 Ruby, but Butler was a really just a complete dud, answering questions by a torrent of words delivered in a much nicer way than Scott Morrison used to, but simply pretty much blah, blah, blah.

Archival Tape – Mark Butler:

“This is going to take focussed effort not just from the Commonwealth but in consultation with the sector itself, obviously, and with state governments who realise now I think, that they've got a direct interest in rebuilding general practice for the benefit of their communities, but also for the viability, the sustainability of their hospital systems…”

CHRIS:

If the Government's going to care about citizens, it needs to be worrying about the fact that over 400 people are currently dying a week from COVID without mention, as though it's not happening.

Archival Tape – Mark Butler:

“So I've made clear that the advice to me from ATAGI, the technical advisory group on immunisations, was that we should expect advice from them very early this year.”

CHRIS:

Unfortunately, Mark Butler is accepting advice from the same Chief medical officer and the same external expert group - ATAGI - that the Morrison Government took during its oversight of the pandemic. And it was pretty bad advice.

Archival Tape – Laura Tingle:

“Minister, COVID is now the third leading cause of death in Australia and is running at 12 times the national road toll. Everybody's got pandemic fatigue, but are we really doing enough here…”

CHRIS:

What is it going to take for the governments federally and for state governments around the nation to snap out of sleepwalker mode and crack onto the obvious vaccine plus measures it could take to really try and dampen transmission of what is a very nasty disease?

Archival Tape – Laura Tingle:

“Should it be easier for people to get access to those drugs?”

Archival Tape – Mark Butler:

“Well, I made the first submission, I think, by the Commonwealth Government to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, the first submission by a Commonwealth government to try to expand the eligibility for antivirals…”

CHRIS:

As Laura Tingle quoted a prominent epidemiologist when interviewing Mark Butler, “Why is it that the Australian Government seems to be giving as little as possible-…

Archival Tape – Laura Tingle:

“…possible to as few people as possible? Are you considering making another Bivalent booster available as a fifth dose to all Australians who have had a fourth dose?”

Archival Tape – Mark Butler:

“Well, I don't accept the premise of that question. There are a range of other supports in place in the aged care system and disabilities in the hospital system…”

CHRIS:

Labor traditionally is all about collective care, you know, people looking out for each other in the community and that is not being expressed in its current public health policy settings. It's really gone full neoliberal. Let it rip.

RUBY:

Can you tell me a bit more about what you think is required? Then? What should the Health Minister, Mark Butler and others be doing right now? And is this mostly a policy issue at this point or a communication issue?

CHRIS:

The whole point of public health policy, you know, at its heart, is to provide in a clear manner accurate information about a health threat that then enables them to accurately calculate their risk. The second thing is it's totally legal now in Australia to work, play, do whatever you want to do, catch a plane, catch a tram and be reeking with COVID 19 and cough it all over your fellow passengers. That's totally legal. In the absence of laws or messaging about whether that's the right or wrong thing to do. People are going for it. And that's why COVID is killing so many people at the minute. The third thing you've got to do is measure accurately. The government has dismantled the reporting system and dismantled the testing infrastructure that would enable us to keep a real understanding of what's going on. Pretty much now, the death rate is the only really strongly accurate statistic about what COVID is doing. The case numbers, you're seeing it completely unreliable because the testing infrastructure has been so thoroughly dismantled except for a little token skeleton effort and because reporting is not mandatory. So government understanding and being transparent about that data is pretty crucial. And I just wonder what it's going to take for the government to wake up and get on with doing the obvious things.

RUBY:

So, Chris, if we move beyond the Covid-19 challenges of 2023, what else are we likely to see becoming a political issue this year? The Voice to Parliament comes to mind quickly is something that the Opposition at least has singled out as an attack line. But do you think that that is likely to dominate the political cycle or are there other things on Labor's policy agenda that might end up proving contentious?

CHRIS:

Ruby, There is so much. Oh my goodness, it's just going to be a hell of a year. The Voice is going to be very, very important, of course. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has made it the leitmotif of his prime ministership in this term to make the Voice happen. It's an incredibly difficult task to get a referendum passed in Australia. I think it's happened successfully eight times since Federation, hasn't happened in Australia since I think 1977, and that was a few very banal changes. Going into a referendum to give it its best shot, you really need unity around that proposal and we're getting the opposite of that now. It's pointing to a very difficult path forward for the Voice. It would be incredibly helpful if the government could encapsulate the Voice into a short, understandable message that people can, you know, use at their workplaces, use at home to try and convey what it is about and why it should be backed. Instead, we're getting some extremely high quality and often profoundly moving long accounts of what it is and why it's necessary. But the truth is that most people aren't going to read long reports. They do need, if it's going to be supported, a real idea of what it is. So I think the sooner the Prime Minister can come up with a short, snappy explanation, we can all marshal behind and advocate for, the better.

And of course, the economy. Jim Chalmers' budget in May is really going to be the big setting of the tiller by the government for the rest of its term. There was of course a budget last year, but at the time the Treasurer foreshadowed that it would be this May budget where a lot of the bigger issues were more deeply grappled with by the Government. And if you want to know what a government is really about, you do look at where it's spending its money. So I think in the run up to May and in the immediate aftermath, it's going to be a very fascinating insight into what matters to this Labor government and what they're going to do about it.

RUBY:

Chris, thank you so much for your time.

CHRIS:

Pleasure.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today,

Archival Tape – Jacinda Ardern:

“And so today I'm announcing that I will not be seeking re-election, and then my term as Prime Minister will conclude no later than the 7th of February.”

RUBY:

New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has announced she will step down from the leadership, after five and a half years in the role.

Archival Tape – Jacinda Ardern:

“I know what this job takes, and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It's that simple.”

RUBY:

In the same speech that she announced her resignation, Ardern also announced a general election for New Zealand, to be held on October 14. Ardern’s Labor Party will elect a new party leader in the coming days, with that person also becoming the country’s prime minister.

And

Australia’s unemployment rate has remained at record lows, despite the Reserve Bank’s sharp increase in interest rates last year. The unemployment figure for December was released this week, showing a loss in part-time roles that was offset by a gain in full-time jobs. The unemployment rate currently sits at 3.5 per cent.

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7am is a daily show from The Monthly and The Saturday Paper.

It’s produced by Kara Jensen-Mackinnon, Alex Tighe, Zoltan Fecso, and Cheyne Anderson.

Our technical producer is Atticus Bastow.

Our editor is Scott Mitchell. Erik Jensen is our editor-in-chief.

Mixing this week from Zoltan Fecso and Atticus Bastow.

Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

I’m Ruby Jones, see you next week.

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