2020 Retrospective | Behind the Scenes of Australia’s Largest Ever Spending Program – with Dr. Steven Kennedy and Matt Comyn

This week we continue our 2020 Retrospective Series of Work with Purpose. In our last episode, we re-played our episode with Professor Brendan Murphy and Caroline Edwards.

This week we are giving you another opportunity to listen to our episode with the Secretary of the Treasury Dr. Steven Kennedy, the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank Matt Comyn and the Senior Economics Writer for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age Jessica Irvine.

It’s the largest piece of Australian Government spending in history. Secretary of the Australian Treasury Dr. Steven Kennedy gives an insider’s view of the JobKeeper program.

They discuss the decision making and design of JobKeeper, why a demand-driven stimulus approach was chosen, and the differences between Australia’s and other international governments’ fiscal responses to the pandemic.

Discussed in this episode:

  • The rationale for the JobKeeper and JobSeeker programs.
  • Avoiding a fiscal cliff and what happens next.
  • Where that $60 billion shortfall came from.
  • Keeping people in jobs and homes.
  • Providing certainty in uncertain times.
  • Using business intelligence to assess policy impact.