Loading So far, his main message is that he is not Kevin Rudd. This may be deeply interesting to the people who populate the dismal circus of Canberra politics. For everyone else, Morrison is merely signalling that political appearances are more important to him than the reality of economic outcomes. Does he really think anyone outside the "bubble" gives a damn about his political vanity as their jobs and businesses teeter? It's time for him to stop campaigning and start governing. If he cares about the country, as opposed to his political vanity, he will do four key things. The first is to address the essential requirement of a functioning economy – confidence. He's already waited too long. Since Professor Murphy invoked the Biosecurity Act, Australia's share market has lost about one-sixth of its value and shoppers are fighting each other for toilet paper. In the course of six weeks, panic selling has taken hold of the share market and panic buying has arrived at the supermarket. Morrison can begin to restore confidence by setting out a plan. One of the reasons that fire-struck Australia was so angry and frustrated with Morrison was that he allowed a leadership vacuum to develop. There seemed to be no one in charge. There was no plan. Fear and anger filled the void.

Morrison needs to make clear that he is in charge and that he has a plan. And the messaging must be positive. Cut the "not like the Rudd government" irrelevancies, or just keep them for the party room, where someone might actually care. His constant references to being "not Rudd" already tangled Morrison badly. In trying to differentiate from the Rudd government, the Morrison government decided that it would assist businesses in its forthcoming package, but not assist households. The explanation was that this is what Rudd had done in response to the global financial crisis. It has changed its mind on this in the last few days. Why? Because households represent 60 per cent of demand in the economy. If you want to help the economy, you can't ignore the biggest part of it. Morrison and Frydenberg now realise this. They now have to crab walk away from the earlier position.

Second, Morrison must not only sound determined, he must also be determined. The scale of the package is key to its success. Or failure. The sum of fiscal firepower the federal government needs to bring to bear needs to be credible. The Reserve Bank, the financial markets and corporate leaders will not be convinced by a package that's worth less than around 1 per cent of gross domestic product, or about $20 billion. The economic package will backfire otherwise. Markets will sneer, credibility will suffer. The less the government does this week, the more it will need to do on budget night. Loading Singapore already has announced spending worth around 2 per cent of GDP. For years, the Reserve Bank has been pleading for the government to invest more in infrastructure to support growth and improve economic productivity. The bank last week cut official interest rates to 0.5 per cent. It has signalled that it has only one more shot in its locker before it would be forced to consider unconventional - read extreme - measures. Illustration: Dionne Gain Credit: By contrast, Australia has plenty of firepower in its federal balance sheet. The international economists at the OECD last week nominated Germany and Australia as two countries that were in a strong position to deploy some "without endangering debt sustainability". It doesn't take much imagination to guess what Lowe is urging Frydenberg to do now.

Third, the composition of the economic statement. The current quarter of the year will doubtless show an economic contraction. The government will be desperate to avoid another contraction in the quarter to the end of June. Two in a row would be decried as Australia's first recession in 28 years. So the package will need to put cash into people's pockets for immediate spending. The

obvious options are pensions and support payments including Newstart. That money will show up almost immediately in the economy – and the June quarter statistics. For businesses, tax relief is the fastest option and the most welcome. At the same time, Morrison won't want to allow any permanent new drains on the budget. So these measures will need to be one-offs. Loading Longer-term, Australia has been suffering a problem of feeble and falling corporate investment. Even before the fires and the virus, the government had been considering introducing a new investment allowance. This is the time to announce it. That will give a longer-running lift to investment, jobs and growth. Fourth is the states. The state governments will be tempted to hoard their cash to preserve their budgets and allow the full burden of stimulus to fall on Canberra. That would be harmful. Morrison needs to cut deals with the states to bring them along as partners, not parasites. Infrastructure is an ideal area to work together. These are the bare essentials. There is scope for more longer-term policy in the Budget too. Including bringing forward the income tax cuts already promised. If Morrison acts decisively and competently, he will save Australia from a recession and set up a new phase of growth. If he is lucky, it will all come together in time for the next federal election. Morrison needs to forget the ghosts of prime ministers past and act as a prime minister for

the future. And, despite his dreadful abrogation of leadership in the fire season, Australians

still hope for miracles.