How quickly achieving the S-word — surplus — has gone down the S-bend.

Because avoiding the R-word — recession — is a far more potent motivator.

Scott Morrison is a prisoner in an awful dilemma; a dilemma of political and economic dimensions.

To settle a 12-year score with the Labor Party — which the Coalition accused of spending way beyond what was necessary to avoid recession during the global financial crisis — the Prime Minister wants to spend no more than is needed.

But Mr Morrison knows too that spending too little would tumble Australia into a damaging downturn of generational impact.

This would be a political purgatory: the surplus gone, a recession practically ensured and no boasting rights to be banked.

In fact, Mr Morrison would never live down the ignominy of being the prime minister who oversaw the end of Australia's golden run of 29 years of uninterrupted economic growth.



It would be a devastating blow from which there might be no recovery for the Liberal Blues.

As an economic challenge, the coronavirus threat is near impossible to nail down.

Initially, Treasury was advising — optimistically no doubt — that there'd be a short, sharp hit to the economy — and therefore the budget — followed by a quick recovery.

This was the "V-shape" economic bump that the Prime Minister and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg have talked about over the past fortnight.

Medical experts are not sure how the coronavirus will play out, making modelling the impact impossible. ( AAP: Darren England )

Now, no-one's so sure what letter of the alphabet is most suitable to describe the coronavirus-caused economic crisis.

That's because of events and responses clearly beyond the control of the Government.

If medical experts aren't sure about how this will play out, modelling its impact is a fool's errand.

But attempting that errand is of absolute necessity in designing a stimulus package to stop economic calamity.

Avoiding recession is now of paramount importance. It's why Mr Morrison's priorities have been so immensely reconfigured.

Consider how damaging the last recession was.

In December 1989, when the economy started to slow ahead of the 1991 recession, unemployment was 5.8 per cent, the lowest it had been since the end of 1981, the time of the recession that brought Malcolm Fraser unstuck.

The unemployment rate didn't return to 5.8 per cent until August 2003.

The point? Recessions hurt, they see some jobs lost permanently, and it takes a bitterly long time for the scars to heal.

The next recession might not be so deep, but the lessons of 1991 are there to be heeded.

Keeping people employed — at work or in training — will be the measure of success hereon. However many billions of dollars Mr Morrison spends.