Fanning the blaze rather than dousing it, Scott Morrison's mini-budget buys banks little time.
Movie nights, family nights at the A-League, momofest … all are now postponed as caution and social-distancing reigns.
The cash splash will be mostly be saved or used as catch-up on consumer loans. The Morrison Frydenberg stimulus clashed with Trump's escalation with the Europe to US travel ban, and this LNP March budget is near dead on arrival.
Front-loading the money flows into the June quarter is the best detail in the plan, too much of it allotted to payoffs for business, whose bankers will be eager to see the BAS tax refund applied to the overdraft.
These will be paid from May onwards, only businesses that are up to date with their quarterly tax returns able to profit from the windfall, equal to 50 per cent of the tax withheld in the March 2020 quarter.
Yes, the income transfers and the business tax breaks and subsidies will be consumed or invested over the medium term but this is too far off to be helpful.
The mooted second round aimed at the Centrelink set may be needed within weeks.