雪梨鎖城 Sydney lockdown
雪梨又鎖城了。
Sydney is in the lockdown again.
第一次鎖城是去年三月底，基本上三月二十一號新南威爾斯州政府宣布如果你所從事的行業不是民生必須服務業，那你就得關門。
The first lockdown was Mar last year, as a matter of fact that on 21st Mar the Australian government announced that if your company isn’t considered as providing ‘essential service’ to the public, then you have to shut down.
當然這個所謂的［民生必須服務］定義很難規範，萬幸的是麥恪旺先生和我工作的兩間公司都屬於提供民生必須服務的定義內，所以我們兩個的職位都沒有受到影響，只需要開始在家工作。托兒所和學校的服務卻有受到異議，最終以這些機構提供的服務對提供民生必需服務的家庭們是必須的，所以也算是民生必需服務。
Of course this ‘essential service’ to the public is hard to define; luckily both companies which Mr McWang and I work for were considered as essential service providers, so we both managed to keep our jobs and just started to work from home (WFH). Day cares and schools were debated, finally it was concluded as essential services to the family who are essential service providers and with kids.
在各州鎖城、鎖州界後，澳洲政府推出了一串的量化寬鬆政策，比如說降低中央銀行利率，提供工作保證津貼，或是工作求職津貼。澳洲中央銀行還提供了三年期的低率放款基金給各家銀行，以鼓勵銀行支助有財務困難的民眾，以避免民眾因強制休業而還不出貸款，而銀行就強制拍賣抵押品的惡性循環。於此，很多銀行也對顧客的貸款提供三到六個月的暫緩方案（這個暫緩方案不一定在暫緩期就不計利息了，每家銀行的條款不一樣，因為不是政府主導的貸款暫緩方案）。至於對我和麥恪旺先生影響最大的就是免了三個月的托兒所費用。值得一提的是，鎖城後沒多少家長送小朋友到托兒所去，但是在四月多的時候政府公布提供免費托兒所三個月，那之後托兒所的回籠率之高啊！
After the lockdowns of cities and borders of each state, Australian government launched various quantitative easing (QE) policies, such as providing Job Keeper allowance or Job Seeker allowance, and lowering interest rates by Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). RBA also established a Term-Funding Facility (TFF) to offer three-year low-rate funding to banks. TFF is to encourage banks to support their customers who were in financial difficulties, by avoiding the vicious cycle of foreclosing loan collaterals if customers cannot fulfil their repayment obligations due to forced shutdown. Therefore a lot of banks ended up offering customers loan repayment deferral plans of 3–6 months (loan repayment deferral plans do not imply the deferral periods are interest-free; each bank offers different terms on deferral plans, which are not a government-led initiative). As for me and Mr McWang, the QE policy affected us the most was free day care for three months. One thing to note, after the lockdown not many parents sent their kids to the day care, but when the government announced free day care for three months in April, the return rate (of kids) was off the roof!
時隔一年之久的雪梨二次鎖城，儘管在六月二十六號晚間強制關閉了所有非民生必需服務的業者兩個禮拜，經濟損失估計高達澳幣兩億，目前新南威爾斯州的財政部長宣布了對強制修業的中小企業及期員工的小額津貼。澳洲政府的印鈔機恐怕都印鈍了。
For the second Sydney lockdown, a year after the first one, even though the government forced shutdown of all non-essential services for two weeks from the evening of 26th Jun, with estimated economic loss of A$2 billion, so far there has been an announcement made by the NSW Treasure for providing a small allowance to the small-medium enterprises and impacted employees. The money-printing machines of Australian government may be running out of ink.
小孩子對玩具的新鮮感向來不持久，所以麥恪旺先生和我在鎖城前並沒有買很多新玩具給後生。我決定用可以回收的廢棄物和後生一起做美勞玩具。這些玩具如果玩壞了或著是不玩了可以丟掉或回收，我不會覺得浪費或覺得對環境負面影響太大。
Kids have short-lived interests in new toys, so Mr McWang and me did not buy many new toys for our son. I decided to do craft using recyclable trashes with our son. Even if we binned or recycled the crafted toys after they are broken or no longer being played, I wouldn’t feel that’s wasteful or impacting the environment too negatively.
唯一不方便的時候就是如果這些玩具壞了或丟了，後生時不時要我重做……光是美國隊長的盾牌我就做了至少四次了……
The only inconvenience is when those crafted toys where broken or binned, our son at times asked me to redo them…… I had done the shield of Capital America for at least four times……
