Not so, according to the research director at the Centre for Independent Studies, Simon Cowan, who recently wrote in these pages that any compromise between the ideological left and right in pursuit of a bipartisan approach to the recovery should be flatly rejected in favour of restoring "... the free-market framework of the economy and [getting] government out of the way".

Such a myopic ideological refusal to brook even the suggestion that our leaders should seek a consensus on the way forward is breathtakingly dangerous in the face of the massive economic collapse under way. It also misrepresents the argument of the think tank I lead, which is not that we should "abandon the free market", or oppose a "productivity-focused agenda", but that we must restore the productivity of the market through government and private-sector investment and co-operation.

The free market has lifted billions of people out of poverty across the globe. At the same time, its pursuit of growth and profit before all else, when allowed to operate without appropriate regulation aimed at limiting inequality, has left many working- and middle-class communities in developed nations with stagnating - even declining - standards of living.

I have heard no one on the "left" suggest that capitalism is responsible for the pandemic; but, just as individuals living with complex health conditions are at greater risk from COVID-19, the excesses of unfettered free-market capitalism have created economic and social comorbidities that leave too many people dangerously exposed to the consequences of the great depression it will leave in its wake.

Australia, like most developed nations, has suffered in recent years from growing levels of income and wealth inequality, insecure work, a degraded welfare state, and shrivelled public services, as the size of government has been deliberately shrunk in favour of private-sector interests.

More than a decade ago, the limits of unfettered free-market growth were laid bare, when financial speculation plunged the global economy into recession. Australia escaped the worst of it by dint of a swift, Keynesian stimulatory response from the then-Labor government.

Yet in the aftermath, we continued with business as usual. Banks were bailed out, businesses were further deregulated, and we continued to build castles on sand, expanding GDP while exacerbating climate change and increasing inequality.

If the free market were able to right itself and restore the balance between growth and the wellbeing of people and the planet, there may be no need for government intervention. Unfortunately for small-government ideologues, there is no evidence whatsoever to support such an argument.

Despite ever-rising profits, Australian business has not contributed proportionately to productivity for many years. According to the Productivity Commission, labour productivity has been declining since the 1970s, to an annual growth rate of just 1.1 per cent annually over the last five years, far below the historical average.

Over the past few decades we have seen a significant drop-off in private-sector productivity investment. This trend has largely occurred due to a lack of corporate investment in new technologies and innovation.

In the 2017-18 financial year, aggregate indicators showed the phenomenon of capital shallowing, with firms investing less in improving their assets than in the previous year.

Business enterprise research and development (BERD) has been far lower than the OECD average since records began in 1981, and was lower in 2015 than in 2008, before the GFC.

Australia's national gross research and development investment is now among the lowest in the developed world. The private sector in Australia has consistently failed to adequately engage in R&D and capital investment, leaving us well behind other advanced economies.

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Now that we are faced with the greatest economic crisis in our history, there is no talk from the private sector about investment in infrastructure or skills. Instead, we hear the usual calls for a cut in the company tax rate, which recent evidence from the United States has shown will not result in productivity growth, but will go into the pockets of shareholders and executives.

This approach had our economy in the doldrums for years before the arrival of COVID-19; arguing that we should restore it when unemployment is predicted to double or even triple, incomes have been smashed and household consumption has fallen off a cliff is both dangerous and absurd.

Put simply, business cannot be relied upon to do the heavy lifting of increasing our national productive capacity and restoring jobs following this crisis.

There is no realistic option but for the government to invest directly in the productive capacity of the Australian economy. It can do so by restoring public services and infrastructure, and creating strong incentives for business to open its purse strings and invest in a more innovative and diversified industrial base.

For our economy to remain sustainable over time, we must see a shift in attitude from the captains of the free market and their cheerleaders. Simply continuing the agenda that worked in the 1980s to modernise and improve Australia's economy won't help us address the challenges before us now.

Contrary to Cowan's assertion, we do, in fact, need a new economic settlement: one in which business commits to reinvest, both in innovative technology and infrastructure, and in human resources through the provision of training and skills development; one which secures a fairer distribution of profit between shareholders and labour, through higher wages and/or shorter working hours.

The fact is, there were significant problems in our economy long before this pandemic shut large parts of it down. Seeing our response to this crisis as an opportunity to fix them isn't an ideological position; it's a pragmatic one.