$2bn shot in the arm but PM says spend up

ALMOST $2bn will be poured into Australia’s vaccine rollout to get the country reopened as the Prime Minister declares we “can’t run the economy on taxpayer dollars forever”.

Suppressing COVID-19 and delivering the vaccine is one of five key priorities for the year to be unveiled by Scott Morrison in a speech at the National Press Club on Monday.

“This will be one of the largest logistics exercises ever seen in Australia’s history — we will be vaccinating 26 million people, having secured over 140 million doses, enough to cover the Australian population several times over,” he will say.

Mr Morrison will unveil an additional $1.7bn in demanddriven funding for the logistics costs of rolling out the vaccine, including hospital surge workforce, resources for GPs and data systems, on top of $200m announced for pharmacies.

With the JobKeeper wage subsidy due to end in March, Mr Morrison will outline that he wants an ongoing economic response that “lifts productivity” to create jobs.

“You can’t run the Australian economy on taxpayer money forever,” he will say.

Describing JobKeeper as a“game changer” for millions of people, Mr Morrison will argue the scheme boosted the balance sheets of families and businesses by more than $200bn and that money now needs to be spent.

“There is now a large sum of money available to be spent across the economy helping to create jobs and maintain the momentum of our economic recovery and that is where it needs to be right now — in Australians’ pockets,” he will say.

The Prime Minister will argue the government must exercise “fiscal discipline” to ensure it did not “overburden future generations”. “We are not running a blank cheque budget,” he will say.

“Consumer and business confidence has recovered as restrictions have come off and will be further supported by the vaccine rollout.

“We want as many Australians vaccinated as quickly as possible. The COVID-19 vaccines will be made free to all Australians and we strongly encourage all Australians to get vaccinated.”

Floor and bar manager at Drake Eatery at Bondi in Sydney, Declan Buswell, said the business, which received JobKeeper for six months until September last year, bounced back “surprisingly well”.

“I was studying at the time COVID hit and my hours were significantly reduced … so JobKeeper really helped me out,” he said.

“It’s hard to say if cutting in March will be okay because it is dependent on any more lockdowns. we shut down again, we are back to square one.”