Making it in Australia

摘要

If the past is another country, the future of Australia's economy after Covid-19 will be a different universe. Every crisis provides an opportunity, but few have the far-reaching impact and implications of a global pandemic. This crisis challenges us to reshape our economic and social direction for years, possibly generations, to come. Not only has it exposed the gaps in Australia's manufacturing supply chains, but it has also more broadly demonstrated the vulnerability of a commodity-based economy to external shocks and the need to reverse the hollowing out of our manufacturing capability. Referring to Covid-19 as a battle for the nation's 'economic sovereignty', Prime Minister Scott Morrison established an industry taskforce~2 comprising business and union leaders to explore ways to rebuild manufacturing - not necessarily like it was but as it could and should be. Significantly, this is also an opportunity to 'rebalance the imperatives of social solidarity with the dynamism of the market to enhance the legitimacy of government'~3.