Source: NAB (Alan Oster, Chief Economist)
While
Bushfire impacts have been catastrophic for those directly involved we have
used the Business Survey panel to try and judge the broader impact of the
bushfires on the general economy. Although there’s no doubting the
devastating impact upon local businesses in bushfire affected areas, key
results suggest that the Bushfires have not impacted significantly on the
macroeconomy (and significantly less than the Qld floods impact). Indeed
the answers imply a reduction from Q1 2020 GDP growth of around 0.15 percentage
points from Bushfires vis-à-vis more than 1 percentage
point from the Qld floods. The Survey involves responses from 339 firms
from our broader Business Survey panel and 279 firms from our SME panel.
Broadly the results from both panels are similar.
Some
of the key results are:
- Around 80% of
respondents report no to little impact (by way of contrast Qld floods read was
68%) and moderate to large impacts were around 20% (Qld floods were 38%); - Loss of capacity
utilisation and revenue was relatively minor – but for some huge; average
working days lost were around 4½ days but higher for SMEs and in NSW; - Impacts were most
pronounced for retail and transport and utilities followed by wholesale and
recreational and personal services; the largest impacts were in NSW and
Victoria; - There was a large
section of losses not covered by insurance (higher in the SME space); - The biggest restraints
to recovery were labour and material availability, lack of demand and utility
outages; - A surprisingly large
number of respondents reported that they were back to pre-bushfire business
levels (around 75%). Those reporting it would take more than a month to recover
were around 8% (Qld floods were over 20%). - While around half of
respondents saw no need to put more emphasis on climate change from the
bushfires (especially mining & construction), there were 30% suggesting
moderate to significant change was required.
Finally
while the indirect impact from the bushfires on the broader economy was
surprisingly low (in our opinion) they are consistent with only small
differences between the December and January Monthly Business survey results.
