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The Guardian: What we'll be when this crisis finally passes

Katharine Murphy has penned an article charting the remarkable journey of the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, from mocking the concept of a wellbeing budget to where "the measure of success [is now] ... how many lives can be spared, and how many jobs and businesses can be maintained".

Similarly Greg Jericho has also penned an aritcle discussing how the barely believable scope of the Coronavirus pandemic will shake up some widely held beliefs about our society and economy.

As Katharine Murphy states, it is currently really difficult to see what our society will look like on the other side of this but for certain it won't be the same as before this crisis started.

Before everything started, we still had a government proudly talking about how massive tax cuts were needed so people at the higher end of the income scale so they could keep more of their income rather than contributing to society more broadly. And a government that resisted raising Newstart at every turn to avoid being soft on those it charactered as "leaners" rather than "lifters".

Yet here we are with the same government talking about being in this all together, about civic duty and national solidarity. We are entering a period where government intervention will be needed to support - and save - many small businesses, jobs and people who don't have a job during this time. The government has already responded with a first stimulus package and now a much larger second package aimed at helping people survive what will be, unfortunately, a very difficult period for many people.

It seems reasonable that such a profound time will cause a shift in perceptions around the role of government, the privatisation of essential services, "privatising gains and socialising losses" and the importance of robust shared socialised institutions.

Maybe that is just being optimistic. In the short term, everyone's life will be massively disrupted. Many of us are lucky to be young enough, healthy enough and with jobs that are secure enough to be able to survive this crisis on our own resources. Many are not and that is why that solidarity is important. But that solidarity shouldn't just be for when society is in a crisis. Hopefully we emerge from this with a renewed focus on an enduring solidarity, building communities and a society more robust against such shocks in the future.

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