This is a similar arrangement to the previous camp at Tanunda in 2019; only this time the social gathering at the Kapunda camp will be quite limited, due to the recent emergence of community transmission of the Covid-19 pandemic in South Australia–known as the “Thebarton cluster”.

There is a sense of foreboding on this Mallee trip, due to Australia being in the depths of a Covid-19 induced recession with an economic crunchtime coming in September when the government’s support is withdrawn. That is what the immediate future looks like at the present. It is not pleasant.

The Morrison government’s current fiscal scare story is that cutting government spending big time in September will help the Australian economy recover from the biggest recession in nearly 100 years. This narrative of ‘deficit up’ and we need to cut spending to pay for all the support for the economy during the pandemic story is in spite of the economic evidence.

The economic evidence suggests that unless the Coalition changes course radically, and spends more money in the second half of this year than it did in the first, then things are going to go from bad to worse for both the economy and the government. People will experience poverty, depression, with some killing themselves out of desperation. Hopefully yesteryears neoliberal mode of governance does not return.

Kapunda in the Barossa Valley will be my base, and like the Tanunda day trips in 2019, my day trips will involve travelling into the South Australian Mallee in, and around, the Galga/Mantung area– crossing the River Murray via Walker Flat or Swan Reach. I have a rough sense of this area and I plan to dig deeper into its absent history —if that is possible.