14th March 2023
Extract of Gigi Foster’s comments on covid and economic issues at the Q&A session on ABC yesterday
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TRANSCRIPT
Gigi there is a broader question here as well because we know when it comes to other essential Services whether it be services for Aged care the NDIS we know we’re going to have a revenue problem. We know we’re still promising tax cuts down the line for the richest people in Australia. If we’re going to get defense spending up around two percent of GDP are even higher what has to go elsewhere?
Gigi: This is a great question Stan and you know I wish that this kind of question had been asked and really seriously debated back when we were spending 400 or 500 billion dollars on covid policy which led us to simply tread water. We don’t have anything to show for that. At least with the submarines we’re going to get skilled labor we’re going to get capacity in nuclear power, so perhaps we can have some green energy here in the country at some point, we’re going to have some people put in work in Adelaide. These are things that are helpful along with the diplomacy.
How do we how do we pay for it all particularly if we’re shy of tax reform and redistribution in an aging population with a with an increasing wealth Gap?
Well, the government showed during covid they were prepared to pay for it by creating money. They simply printed it.
I hope we get into interest rates later on. We are now today feeling the consequences of our mistakes in the covid era. So you know, I don’t think it’s a question of having to balance the books necessarily. And by the way, as you said we are not promising to buy these subs until 2030. Lots of things could change before then.
Three years ago as a year 12 student I asked the panel how they could justify um doubling the price of my University fees as a prospective Arts student and now three years later I’ve been forced to drop out of University because I simply can’t afford to keep studying while keeping up with the rising cost of living. I’ve been forced into a position of putting my education on hold because I need to work full-time to support myself. My bills continue to rise. Owning a home just seems like a pipe dream and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better. What would you say to me and other young people in my position and why must I decide between getting an education and putting food on the table?
Gigi: Thank you very much for your articulate exposition of your situation. I’m very sorry to hear it and unfortunately this is some of the consequences that we’re seeing of the mismanagement of our economy over the last few years. We have spent hugely as I said previously for very little return, and on things that were never really predicted to even have much of a return. It was a religious expenditure. And, in fact, there are many other things that have happened to us that we don’t even really hear much about in the media these days, that are other consequences of those mismanagements.
For example, there are tens of thousands more Australians we’ve lost since middle of 2021 than we should have by historical standards, and not all of those are covid deaths by any stretch of the imagination. So what are they? Delayed lockdown deaths? Deaths from despair? People who had crowded out cancer screenings now dying of cancer? Vaccine side effects? What is it? This should be front page news in every Australian paper but you don’t hear about it and we know that the decisions made during that period were for politics, not for health.
How does that play into this situation?
Because these decisions are the ones that she is feeling the consequences of right now.
The politics in in the UK – which is what’s coming through in the in the Matt Hancock WhatsApp files – the lockdown files, that’s being published in the Daily Telegraph. The whole bunch of messages from this guy who was doing policy in covid showing that it wasn’t about public health promotion. Those policies created the economic crisis that we are now living through, that you are now living through, and you are paying the price unfortunately.
STUPID GREEN WOMAN JUMPED IN: To be fair Gigi yes, I understand the expenditure with covert but the cost of living and housing affordability that particularly in Sydney and Melbourne that has been as a result of government policy for years, like negative gearing, housing supply, this isn’t because housing
Housing Supply is a big problem and I totally agree and I think the government should be building housing and it doesn’t want to because it’s too hard. But government should be doing that. We should fix the housing supply problem.
We should be holding the developers to account to actually develop quickly when they get the rights.
But the covid problem was dealt with so poorly that we have created an inflationary environment where house prices are going up but so are food prices.
House prices are coming down, interest rates are going up,isn’t it?
Well, mortgage payments are going up, so housing costs – which is what you’re feeling – the rental market is also going up.
