A leading credit rating agency has blamed the Andrews Government’s prolonged lockdowns for Victoria’s ballooning debt, as the state stares down the prospect of a credit rating downgrade – meaning an increased risk of defaulting on debt i.e., bankruptcy – within the next year.
Victoria’s capital, Melbourne, had the longest lockdowns in the world – six lockdowns with a cumulative total of 262 days throughout 2020 and 2021, during which time many businesses were shuttered while workers lived off benefits.
Anthony Walker, Director in the sovereign ratings team at S&P Global Ratings, said that only five or six years ago, “Victoria had the best financial outcomes” in Australia, but that the Andrews Government’s lockdowns had created fiscal conditions that Walker described matter-of-factly as “not positive”.
“Definitely the prolonged lockdowns and the number of lockdowns during Covid were the key that drove this,” Walker told Tom Elliot on 3AW radio.
“What we’re seeing now is that most other states around the world have recovered from Covid financially. Australian states, not just Victoria, are lagging.
“Our understanding was that the Government didn’t really care about the financial, economic costs.
“They just wanted to get the health outcomes correct. Well, that came at a massive fiscal shock, and they’re still trying to recover from that.”
Walker said that “very difficult decisions need to be made” about Government spending going forward, as a looming credit rating downgrade would direct more state funds towards paying off higher interest fees on debt, potentially sending social welfare programs or infrastructure projects to the chopping block.
Walker’s comments come as Victoria is currently paying $26 million Australian dollars a day – $9.4 billion per year – on interest repayments towards the state’s $156.2 billion debt, projected to rise to $187.8 billion by 2027-28, for a population of approximately seven million. Victoria’s net debt is projected to be 24.4% of gross state product (GSP, which calculates the value of goods and services produced by the state) by June 2025.
Walker said that budget blow outs and funding shortfalls on several large infrastructure projects could create further downward pressure on Victoria’s credit rating.
The Airport Rail Link is projected to blow out by $2 billion due to delays, and the Metro Tunnel project has been beset by problems contributing to around $3 billion in added costs. A third project, the Suburban Rail Loop, is facing a $20 billion funding gap.
Victoria’s credit rating was already dropped by two levels – from AAA to AA – in 2020, a move that Walker said had never been done before for a state government.
Economist: Worst peace-time policy failure
Professor Gigi Foster, an economist at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) said it was clear since as early as March 2020 that Victoria’s lockdowns would carry enormous economic costs.
“I am sorry to say that I stand by my predictions that Covid lockdowns will go down eventually as the worst peace-time policy failure in Australia’s history,” Foster told me.
“There is no world in which forcing an economy to pause indefinitely carries no cost, because economic activity is the engine that powers the maintenance and gradual rise of human living standards.”
Foster cautioned a Victorian Government committee in August 2020 that continued lockdowns would cause greater loss of life years and wellbeing than they would save, but “sadly, my warnings went unheeded”.
Instead, Foster was singled out for abuse for highlighting the potential harms of Victoria’s extreme lockdown policies.
“I was pilloried by others in my profession, called many derogatory names by dozens of people over email, on social media, and in studio audiences, and told many times that my professional opinion about lockdown policies was of no value (or was even ‘dangerous to public health’) because I was not a health practitioner or epidemiologist,” she said.
Foster’s analysis of the societal, economic and health merits of Victoria’s Covid lockdowns found that the costs were 68 times greater than any benefits afforded.
Foster has also co-authored a book-length cost-benefit analysis of Victoria’s lockdowns with ex-Victorian Treasury economist Sanjeev Sabhlok, and a peer-reviewed paper with economist Paul Frijters in which the authors conclude that Australia’s lockdowns were “a disproportionate and largely ineffective policy response” to Covid, which went against decades of scientific consensus.
Epidemiologist: Harm the economy, harm human health
Stanford University epidemiologist Professor Jay Bhattacharya also faced blowback for his warnings about the harms of lockdowns, being targeted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins for a “quick and devastating published take down” of his views, and being censored by social media platforms under pressure from the Biden Administration.
Bhattacharya told me that criticisms of lockdowns were wrongly seen in terms of a trade-off between saving lives and protecting the economy.
“In fact, there was no trade-off as the lockdowns did not ultimately protect human life, and they devastated the economies of the countries that most assiduously implemented them,” he said.
“A second related fallacy is the idea that economic harm does not translate to harm to human health. The opposite is true.
“Poorer populations lead shorter, less healthy lives. Accounting for economic harm should be a vital part of public health thinking, even during a pandemic, if human life is to be preserved.”
In October 2020, Bhattacharya co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration with epidemiologists Martin Kulldorff (Harvard) and Sunetra Gupta (Oxford), calling for ‘focused protection’ of the most vulnerable instead of wholesale lockdowns. This approach is now widely agreed to be the least damaging and the most effective.
But Bhattacharya said that Australian media, with the exception of Spectator and Outsiders on Sky News, were “quite hostile” to this idea during the peak days of the pandemic in 2020-2022.
“The point of view adopted by much of the Australian press seemed to be that zero-Covid was a permanent achievable goal, with no regard for the ultimate futility of the strategy and the harms to health and welfare imposed on the Australian population by the policy.”
Victorian Government: Economic growth is what matters
A spokesperson for the Victorian Government said:
At the height of the pandemic we used our balance sheet to protect families and businesses, savings jobs and saving lives, and since September 2020 we have led the nation in jobs growth.
Our fiscal strategy is strengthening the economy and providing opportunities for Victorians, with more jobs created in Victoria than any other state since we came to government.
Deloitte Access Economics data forecasts that Victoria will lead the nation in economic growth over the next five years.
The spokesperson added that the Victorian Budget 2024/25 is “the first time net debt to GSP has dropped since 2017”.
Foster is sceptical. “If you actively damage the economy, lowering the baseline of activity and jobs, then it’s a lot easier to create growth in both from that lower baseline and then crow about it,” she said.
Former Premier Dan Andrews, who was responsible for Victoria’s Covid lockdowns, has not publicly commented on Walker’s statements blaming his policies for the state’s dire debt situation.
However, when previously challenged on his draconian Covid policies, Andrews has tended towards defending his record, highlighting that he was re-elected in 2022 after the worst of the lockdowns, and refusing to “apologise for saving lives”.
Nearly three quarters of Victorians supported the Andrews Government’s extreme measures in the first year of the pandemic, polling showed.
This year, Andrews was awarded Australia’s top honour, in part for “eminent service to public health”.
Looking ahead
Foster said she is concerned that Victoria’s debt woes are “only the tip of the iceberg”.
“Far more negative effects on Australia’s health, wealth and happiness will be seen in the coming years stemming directly from our colossal mismanagement of the Covid era.”
But it’s not all bad news – there are things that can be done to improve the situation, said Foster.
“The Government should significantly reduce its own numbers and its own pay cheques, reduce red tape in industries across the board, refocus on its core mission of providing high-quality, easily accessible basic services and public goods to all Victorians, [and] open all state affairs to public scrutiny.”
The Government should also set up a process to “manage the acknowledgement of betrayal, hearing of pain, apologies, trials, and other components the people of the state will need to heal” from pandemic mismanagement, she said.
With the Covid pandemic in the rearview mirror, much of the focus is now on lessons learned.
Asked what we can learn from Victoria’s pandemic management, and lockdowns in particular, Bhattacharya is frank.
“Victoria is an example of how not to handle a pandemic. Authoritarian government is bad public health policy.”
This article was originally published on Dystopian Down Under, Rebekah Barnettt’s Substack newsletter. You can subscribe here.
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Brilliant!
Seconded…..
This sort of demonic insanity is like a bottomless pit: individuals and societies that fall into it are in a permanent state of fall, never reaching the bottom.
To sustain the basic lie (i.e. that a man can change gender) further and further elaborate lies must be invented, propagated and enforced. At the end the whole thing will implode, inevitably, as ultimately there is order in the universe and that order ensures that reality always wins.
By the way, I don’t think Madame Macron looks like a man; no, she looks like a desperately sad woman who has had far too much plastic surgery.
But yeah, there is something weird about the relationship.
XY is not XX and testosterone is not estrogen or progesterone.
Along with the usual two overall options for bodily features, that’s all there is to it.
Am somehow reminded of the reputed excesses of the Weimar Republic this time last century.
Because she/he/it is a man ?
Or maybe she/he/it is a monkey ?
Difficult to tell.
FBI supposedly has the proof that Big Mike aka Michelle OClowna is a man.
Looking forward to Tronald and Kash releasing that info.
Because of Germany’s ludicrous self-identity gender laws ( which apply from the age of 14yrs old ), all the loopholes are opened and all the weirdos, predatory perverts and con artists are protected because they suddenly have ‘rights’ to behave this way. This case just demonstrates what is possible when you fixate and prioritise DEI above all else because those who run society are epic woketards;
”A trans-identified male in Dortmund, Germany, is facing scrutiny after winning over €250,000 over the course of 240 separate discrimination lawsuits. Many have accused the man, who has been unemployed for 12 years, of using Germany’s strict protections for those who self-identify as transgender to enrich himself.
Apart from three internships and one short-term job, the trans-identified man has been unemployed since 2012 and receives public welfare.
In a recent interview with Westphalen Blatt, Steffen claimed to have applied for over 1,577 jobs over the last eight years, but reported he has struggled to find a position. But critics have accused Steffen of running something akin to a racket, labelling him an “AGG-hopper.” The German slang term refers to individuals who do not apply for a job with the intention of actually taking it up, but rather to receive compensation for alleged violations of anti-discrimination laws.
Steffen has been known to apply for jobs he does not actually qualify for throughout the North Rhine-Westphalia region. For example, in one instance he applied for a job which was a one-hour drive from his home despite the fact he does not have a driver’s license and cannot drive.
But the moment Steffen receives a rejection from a job he applies for, he files a lawsuit citing a violation of the German Equal Treatment Act (AGG). Steffen has also filed lawsuits for jobs he never applied for, but found to be “discriminatory” in advance by focusing on minor errors in the job advertisements.
For example, in one case, an advertisement omitted to specify that people of “diverse” genders can apply, and only stated that “male and female” applicants were welcome. Steffen sued over this omission and won.”
https://reduxx.info/germany-trans-identified-male-on-welfare-sues-over-240-employers-for-discrimination-after-being-continuously-rejected-from-jobs-he-is-not-qualified-for/
A number of different adjectives may be appropriate for Candace Owens – I can understand why some of her positions might be found hard to take – but I can’t see how she could be described as “moronic” in the commonly used sense of the word.
Regarding Macron’s wife, I have no idea about her, but I am not sure how the author can determine that she’s a woman just because Mr Macron was interested in her. The fact that she is reported to have children seems more telling – probably quite hard to fake having children.
Whether or not it is hard depends who you are and/or who you know, I suppose…
Stranger things have happened.
Candace Owens has zero credibility as she’s a Jew-hating, vacuous talking head who defends known perverts and simps for sex-trafficking, rapist, misogynist, scam-artist pimps. Just another female traitor to her own sex, then. There’s a fair amount of them about;
https://x.com/TheMilkBarTV/status/1889146872432058748
I have no idea if it’s male or female. But it definitely is ugly.
Looks like my assessment of you the other day was spot on.
Missed it. I’m just gutted.
The fact you’ve repeatedly proven yourself to be the misogynists’ loyal little handmaiden? One of many who lurk on here? There you go, consider yourself up to speed.
I guess, forever being the anomaly around these parts, I’m never going to be a nasty little keyboard warrior, sat at home, calling an elderly woman “ugly”. But that’s just me. Never was much cop at being a ‘nodding dog’ in an echo chamber.
Top article. ‘First Ladyboy’–love it!
I recall Richard Dawkins’ idea of memes – a self-propagating unit of cultural evolution having a resemblance to the gene (the unit of genetics). As an example the phrase “Play it again, Sam” is a well known and recognised phrase – even though the phrase was never spoken in the film ‘Casablanca’.
There were plenty of nay-sayers to the meme idea… but if memes attract approval they can spread without necessarily being true. Perhaps weird allegations spread as memes because they are too delicious not to pass on, whether they are true or not?
You could make an argument that many of the Social Justice ideas are just memes that play into the worldview of those that wish the memes were true.
What a crazy conspiracy theory that Brigitte is a man. No more likely than a worldwide pandemic caused by a lab leak to lock us all up and get us all jabbed.
Depressing to see the intolerant abuse terms of the mob in the DS – for the first time that I recall. If Candace Owens is a moron she is at least as articulate as Steven Tucker, and a good deal more successful in reaching an audience. I suspect his dislike of her may be more to do with her attitude to the activities of the Israeli state than the landscape of the Marcronic nether regions….
Dr Victor Acharian clearly doesn’t own a scalpel as the application of said article to the excess appendages would have gone some way to solve the problem. Oh I suppose he might have needed anaesthetic too.
Name calling and othering Candace Owens? shame on you. People should listen to the podcast and decide for themselves, it is a well researched entertaining piece.
This was hilarious