Episode 195 | Is Australia Ready to Reopen? | Brendan Coates, The Grattan Institute

With half of the country in lockdown and Sydney just completing its third month, much has been made about the vaccination targets of 70% and 80% of eligible adults being our golden ticket to freedom.

How much have these lockdowns affected the economy and the nation’s mental health? Will Australia’s strategy for reopening do the job of balancing health outcomes with growth and prosperity for all? 

How well are we managing the health and the economic trade-offs - and what might the next few months look like?

Grattan Institute’s Economic Policy Program Director, Brendan Coates, joins us for a very colourful and informative discussion on Australia’s plan to reopen, the strategy being used, how realistic it really is, the challenge with reaching the 80% vaccine rollout, plus so much more!

We’ll see you in the episode!

Episode Highlights:

1. How realistic & effective are the steps to reopening the country? [02:32]

2. Is “Covid Zero” now a thing of the past? [06:09]

   1. How quickly will we be able to get everyone vaccinated? [09:20]

   2. What about the UK’s decision to reopen fully with a 70% vaccination rate? [14:42]

   3. Should we have gotten Covid out in the community to avoid burning ourselves in the end? [16:02]

3. Thoughts on Labor’s negative gearing policy [17:38]

4. The challenge of getting to an 80% vaccination rollout [19:17] 

   1. Does stopping Covid rely so much on vaccinating kids? [22:36]

   2. How about top-ups and boosters? [24:37]

   3. Let’s talk about vaccines available & their potency [24:56]

5. Are we rushing vaccine shots too much just to get everyone through? [27:05]

6. Anti-vax proponents & how much they impact the rest of the population [29:22]

7. Did prioritizing physical health cause more mental health problems? [32:20]

8. What we’ve lost to Covid, in an economic aspect [34:42]

   1. The debt impact of the pandemic [36:55]

9. Migrant intake and impact when the borders reopen [40:49]

10. The problem with reassuring people that the 80% rollout is our ‘ticket to freedom’ [44:58]

    1. On estimate, when will we hit the 80% vaccine rollout? [48:57]

11. Learning, observing & testing before moving to Phase D [51:31]

12. How about people who die due to other causes that couldn’t get an ICU bed? [53:52]

13. What should be happening (that isn’t) at a government level in terms of spending? [55:11]

14. “Leaning against the wind” [58:50]

15. Brendan’s property dumbo [01:02:45]

Links from the Show:

• Check out The Grattan Institute’s Report: Race to 80  

• Episode 153 - Accessing Super for Home Buying?

• Episode 124: The New Normal: Will Your Household Finances Hold Up?

• Episode 89 - Australia’s Home Ownership Crisis

About our Guest:

Brendan Coates is the Economic Policy Program Director at Grattan Institute, where he leads Grattan’s work on tax and transfer system reform, retirement incomes and superannuation, housing, macroeconomics, and migration. He is a former macro-financial economist with the World Bank in Indonesia and consulted to the Bank in Latin America. 

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