Coronavirus hits Coalition seats the hardest, upping pressure on PM

David Gillespie, a physician politician whose electorate has been hit worse than almost anywhere else by COVID-19, doesn't believe the virus can be defeated, and wants governments to stop strangling an economy he sees disintegrating around him.

The federal Coalition MP has greater moral standing than most on what may be the public policy question of the decade.

Unemployment in his electorate of Lyne, which extends from the beaches of Port Macquarie in northern NSW to the edge of the Hunter Valley, rose 10.7 per cent in the 35 days to April 18, the biggest pandemic-driven increase of any seat in Australia other than in neighbouring Cowper, where the increase was 11.6 per cent.

Living the economic devastation through his friends, family and constituents, Gillespie is frustrated that the state NSW government, also Liberal, will not allow more than 50 people to eat and drink in often-cavernous clubs from Monday.

The gastroenterologist wants air travel opened not just to New Zealand, but to the Pacific islands as soon as possible.

While Gillespie won't defy his own leaders and call for JobKeeper payments to continue beyond September, he is convinced the program stood between a recession-like downturn and economic collapse in Lyne.

Eradication of the novel coronavirus is not realistic, he says, and the last remnants of the lockdown need to end.

"COVID-19 is a new virus," he says. "It will slowly rotate around the world and there will be second and third waves. Until it gets through the population or there is a vaccine, we have to try to control any outbreaks and have our economy working as best as possible."

While the virus is politically blind, the economic damage isn't. Nine of the 10 electorates that suffered the largest employment falls are held by the government, a lopsided distribution that adds to the pressure on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to look after those Australians, in a rebellion against urban elites, who delivered the Coalition's election victory last year.

"I think the common perception is that the inner cities were harder hit by this," says Brendan Coates, a Grattan Institute economist who broke down the job losses by seat.

"I was surprised so many of the rural electorates were so much more affected. They don't have as many white-collar professionals who used to sit in offices and are now working from home."

The true situation is worse than the figures suggest, Coates says, because JobKeeper recipients who aren't working are not counted as unemployed, and more jobs have likely been lost since the data was collected.

Queensland borders

Early this week, one of Gillespie's Queensland colleagues, Angie Bell, personally pleaded with the state's premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, to set an early timetable for opening of the border to allow thousands of NSW holidaymakers to head north for winter holidays.

The Premier's original date was July 10. But Palaszczuk wants no COVID-19 within her borders, and doesn't have to pay unemployment benefits, which are a federal responsibility. Queensland may be sealed off until spring.

The lack of an opening date is almost as bad for tourism as the delay. Southerners won't book flights they may not be allowed to take.

Bell's Gold Coast seat of Moncrieff is seventh on the job-loss rankings, and the former sales rep (she wrote a book called Retail Rebranded: 27 Secrets of Market Leaders) helped secure a $95 million grant for zoos and aquariums that is being used to keep alive Sea World dolphins. Coalition MPs dub the program "ZooKeeper".

While Bell maintains party discipline on the temporary nature of JobKeeper - unlike Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe, who suggested on Thursday it might need to be prolonged - she is acutely aware of its importance to small business, one of her most important constituencies.

"JobKeeper is the only thing keeping them going," she says.

Whether to extend JobKeeper looks like the government's toughest fiscal call. Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg understandably want to minimise a generation-scarring debt burden, but the job carnage in Coalition seats compounds the intense political pressure to staunch rising unemployment.

On Friday, Morrison was asked about Lowe's JobSeeker comments. He suggested the government is waiting to see which parts of the economy will need more assistance, and programs other than JobKeeper could be used.

"As time goes on ... more of your economy is less in need of those specific supports than it was at first," Morrison said. "But some sectors of your economy will need them for longer."

An unwelcome prize

On the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane, Fisher MP Andrew Wallace has spent part of the last three weeks visiting construction, retail and tourism businesses. He saw how one in 10 jobs in a previously thriving area evaporated in five painful weeks.

"To have the moniker of equal third-worst in the country is not a prize you want to hang on the mantelpiece," he says.

As an ex-builder and construction law barrister, Wallace is conscious that when the many houses, apartments and offices being built around Australia are completed in the coming weeks and months, the industry faces a prolonged slump.

Wallace doesn't want to pre-empt the government, but says he has been working with Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar and Frydenberg on a support package for construction.

"It is important we have a role to play there, just as we have done with tourism," he says. "There is a lot of people in the building industry who will be looking for work come August and September."

Coalition backbenchers don't get much national exposure. But they are a powerful political force when they choose to be.

Watching their electorates in crisis, they have the incentive of a lifetime to push the government to be even more fiscally interventionist. Just like the Labor Party.