Australia has done exceedingly well in containing COVID-19.
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This still isn't any sort of guarantee that the good results will continue, but the point is the nation has demonstrated the capacity to do what's needed.
A similar effort will be needed to go from the pandemic-induced recession to better times.
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But unlike the hardship the community has worn to keep COVID-19 at bay, the road to economic recovery should at least be littered with rewards that give people heart.
There is no silver bullet, though if ever there was a way forward it has to involve spending money to encourage growth.
Specifically, that will require governments being willing to make investments in our business sector.
In recent decades, the national political debate has often involved the Coalition on one side pouring scorn on Labor for racking-up too much debt and Labor deriding the conservatives for the opposite.
There can be no doubt that increased government spending has played a critical role in getting economies moving.
The stand-out example is the New Deal enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the US between 1933 and 1939, lifting that nation's battered economy out of the grim times of The Great Depression.
What's needed in Australia is clearly not, in relative terms, on that scale.
It is crucial though for investments to be made; the significant positive impact of the Snowy Mountains scheme is a clear example.
The NSW government's decision to support the Albury's NEXUS Industrial Precinct - in what it describes as a "regional job precinct" - is a step down this path.
The government says it will help encourage investors to come on board through the cutting of red tape and by encouraging a more streamlined planning process.
Again, it is true that looking for ways out of the economic low dealt to us by the pandemic has to be front and centre.
But it is also true that such projects for a growing, prosperous region like the one in which we live should always be on the funding radar for government.
