'There will be people whose livelihoods and marriages will collapse'

Nicki Hutley says there are still "lots of questions" in the wake of the Government's latest package.

"[The Government] is trying to fill all the gaps. Each time they come out with something and we economists say, 'What about these people and these people?'

"And they are trying to fill the gaps. I suspect there will be some at the end of this but I suspect there will be more on offer.

"The Government has been quite open in saying this isn't the end of the line here.

"Just the amount they've been prepared to spend today, as you said, extraordinary. I think the ABC's Andrew Probyn said it is gobsmacking amounts of money have come out. They'll do whatever it takes. The one point I would make, in and relation to the first question, people will slip through the cracks in this.

"There will be people who will lose livelihoods and marriages will collapse.

"There will be terrible social and economic consequences.

"We can't avoid that. But the Government is going as hard as it can through economic and through those other measures announced yesterday around mental health and domestic and family violence to try and do what it can to cushion the blow, not to get rid of the blow."

