For two years we suffered COVID-19 together.
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We obeyed common rules, lockdowns, masks, check-ins, every economic sector had adjustments to make. People cooperated, they were generous, our neighbourhoods became better places in many ways.
Our public health system held solid, there were signs of economic bounce back, it was going to be alright.
Then Omicron arrived, it was less severe, the experts said, we can push through it, said Premier Perrottet and Prime Minister Morrison, enjoy Christmas, enjoy summer, 2022 is looking up.
But these leaders were wrong.
Omicron galloped through our family, like many others. We were in the queues that caused the testing system to collapse.
We were in the chase for rapid antigen tests that told us what we already knew, that we were sick.
We read new versions of isolation rules, many times.
And we laughed when these same leaders suggested people could be back within a week of infection, as if a dose of Omicron was a minor ailment.
It's hard to nominate a time when an essential public service has failed the community so badly. Imagine if the security of our prisons, the safety of our roads, the reliability of our electricity grid, were compromised like our public health system has been?
The problem, now, is the extent of compounding failures. The illness is stripping staff from hospitals, it takes trucks off the road, closes down food processing lines, strips emergency maintenance crews.
Our high streets are dead.
Many child care centres aren't re-opening. Decisions about the new school year seem likely to be uncertain, inconsistent. Teachers will get sick in the months ahead, kids will be sent home.
Parents will again be forced to work from home, shredding employer plans for a 2022 return to the office. Hopes are gone for a continuation of a v-shaped recovery.
The economic repercussions of compounding failures need urgent attention. Recovery strategies need mounting. Isn't this why we have government?
Where is the recovery strategy for Newcastle and the Hunter? Last September, the NSW government announced a $5 billion recovery fund 'WestInvest' for new and improved facilities and local infrastructure to help Western Sydney communities hit hard by COVID-19.
For Newcastle and the Hunter, zilch.
A particular problem for the lower Hunter is that population growth has been a major economic driver for our region over the last decade. According to local government data supplier, Remplan, almost 45,000 new dwellings were built in the Hunter in the past 10 years. Newcastle led the way with stacks of new apartments downtown, Lake Macquarie and Maitland with new houses on the urban fringe.
The stimulus for population growth in the lower Hunter comes from its position in the middle of Australia's surging eastern seaboard. Newcastle's apartment growth is driven by migration from Sydney.
New housing in Lake Macquarie and Maitland targets nappy-belters, tradies and service workers whose jobs depend on ongoing population growth.
But COVID-19 has interrupted Australia's population surge.
What happens next is uncertain. The lower Hunter surely will take a hit.
For those who can work from home - and this is about one third of the lower Hunter workforce, based on data from the lockdowns - the future is also uncertain.
COVID-19 has exposed a thinness in the lower Hunter's professional services labour force. Sure, office jobs involving routine processing and customer servicing can be performed at home, home schooling and carer responsibilities notwithstanding.
But there's no wider economic gain from a permanent home-based workforce. Suburbs will transform into detached work stations by day, lifeless dormitories by night. There are no multiplier effects from home working other than from local consumer spending. Substitute on-line retailing for in-person shopping and local high streets go into permanent lockdown.
Prosperous economies require interacting firms, competing supply chains, worker movements between employers, congregations of onsite workers to share successful experiences, float ideas, represent themselves collectively to employers, enjoy each other. Working from home kills these off.
Right now, the Hunter economy isn't well placed to come out of the long COVID-19 illness it has contracted.
The 'we can push through it' rhetoric of our political leaders is already hollow.
A Western Sydney-style investment fund would help.
And local leadership is desperately needed.
Phillip O'Neill is professor of economic geography at Western Sydney University.
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