Welcome to this week’s editorial,
If you had asked me a month ago how we were going in the South East I would have said that we were getting there, one step at a time, at a very slow pace… but we were getting there.
There were signs of healing after the fires with evidence of support coming through for those directly affected by way of site clean-ups and financial assistance. The community, our community, had bonded to support those who were impacted, directly and indirectly. It was warming to witness the bonding across the community. Irrespective of who you were you were either affected yourself by the fires or knew of someone close who was.
We got together as a community and stepped up to do what we could without question.
Then along came Covid. Once again this required the community to act as one and we did. We took all the precautions required, most of us complied with directions and only some of us were just a little too keen to stockpile. In general we were selfless and community aware.
Now, as Covid restrictions lift we are seeing our community awake to new days. The threat of bushfires have passed for the minute, the unseen Covid-19 bug is of less concern and we are quietly riding a sea of social security via Job Seeker and Job Keeper that, for the minute, is keeping us afloat.
But all too soon that life raft will run aground and where we step out will be unchartered territory.
When that time comes it will see us return to a region that relies too heavily on a peak and trough tourism industry in an area that has the highest median age in NSW and the highest youth unemployment in the State.
Our older residents who are not on social security have taken a hammering in the share market by way of their superannuation and those who earn more than $750 per week will have taken a substantial loss of earnings requiring a catch up on mortgages and overheads.
After the bushfires, the floods, and now the Covid we will come out to an new Era that we have not experienced before. …. The Poor. And the Very Poor.
Let’s see how we measure as a community when it arrives.
Until next—Lei
