Retail spending in the run-up to Christmas was even stronger than first thought, with Victorians particularly rampant at the shops as they emerged from a lengthy lockdown.
Retail trade soared by 7.1 per cent in November, even higher than preliminary findings previously released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Retail turnover was a hefty 13.3 per cent over the year to November.
Such strength coincided with improved consumer confidence as the economy recovered from recession.
However, there are concerns about how recent local flare-ups of the coronavirus will affect confidence, and in turn spending, in coming months.
“Closed borders cost jobs, there is no secret in that,” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Monday.
“But I can tell you what is a lot worse for the economy, and that is if you get a third wave of (coronavirus) cases, because that does force lockdowns and introduce a lot more uncertainty for business and affect investment.”
NSW locked down Sydney’s northern beaches area just before Christmas as a COVID-19 cluster emerged in Avalon, with restrictions only eased on Sunday.
Queensland also declared a snap lockdown in the Greater Brisbane area over the weekend – after a case of the highly infectious UK strain was detected.
That will end on Monday night after the state recorded zero locally acquired cases for a third day in a row.
But Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox is unhappy about border closures, such as those tied to the Brisbane lockdown, accusing premiers and medical officers of making decisions at a drop of a hat.
“It impacts on business confidence in a significant way,” he told Sky News.
“It sends business the very clear signal that they’re the poor cousins in all of this and they just have to tolerate what governments decide to do with very little warning.”
Still, Mr Frydenberg points out that tax cuts and concessions worth $7 billion have been distributed to nearly eight million Australians over the past six months to ease the pain of the pandemic.
Taxpayers pocketed $1.1 billion through the federal government’s stage two tax cuts between July 1 and January 3.
Another $5.9 billion has been paid under low and middle income tax offsets to 7.8 million people.
Mr Frydenberg expects billions more dollars in tax relief to flow into people’s pockets in coming months, coupled with other economic initiatives rolled out during the coronavirus pandemic.
But he is adamant the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme will end in March as planned.
“There is a whole sweep of measures that the government has implemented that will help the economy face its biggest economic shock since the great depression,” he said.