But poorly targeted spending will do damage to the economy, increase unemployment and prolong the recession.

The livelihoods and well-being of hundreds of thousands of Australians hang in the balance.

The economic advice for recessions is to go early, go hard and go households, but we now find out that while the Morrison government announced early and announced hard, there will be $60 billion less circulating in the economy than Australians had been led to believe.

The Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) warned on Thursday that "It's very important that we do not withdraw fiscal stimulus too early."

Unfortunately, the government had a track record for ignoring the RBA's calls for fiscal stimulus way before the pandemic arrived, so there's no reason to expect they'll do anything but ignore this advice as well.

Indeed, it appears the Prime Minister is pursuing austerity. He is already talking about savings in the JobKeeper package (a neoliberal euphemism for the $60 billion underspend in its wage subsidy package) and has committed to end the JobKeeper and JobSeeker packages, and free childcare, in September.

Basically, the Prime Minister is promising to shrink the economy during a global recession.

Which makes the role of the Prime Minister's hand-picked National COVID-19 Coordination Commission (NCCC) all the more important.

The NCCC has two key goals: to help minimise and mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 on jobs and businesses, and to facilitate the fastest possible recovery of lives and livelihoods.

Admirable goals, but there's not much evidence to suggest the NCCC is meeting either.

The rationale for a recovery planning body operating outside of normal democratic and public service processes remains unclear.

So far, the NCCC has released a planning tool for businesses to re-open, developed the COVIDSafe app, and announced three working groups: a not-for-profit working group, a manufacturing working group to solve supply chain issues, and an IR working group with no union representatives.

What has it done for universities? For the millions of casuals who miss out on JobKeeper? For tourism or the arts and entertainment sector? Diddly squat, that's what.

However, documents leaked to the ABC have revealed a draft NCCC report calls for massive gas subsidies, reduced "green and red tape" and an end to all fracking moratoriums in NSW and Victoria.

The leaked document is ostensibly about supporting advanced manufacturing - which is a fabulous idea.

But there are twice as many recommendations about expanding the gas industry as expanding advanced manufacturing.

No industry has done more to harm manufacturing in the past decade than the gas industry.

To now market it as some kind of saviour of manufacturing is a joke.

The gas industry's decision to massively ramp up gas production and start a huge LNG export industry saw gas prices triple in Australia, crippling manufacturing in particular.

Does the government really believe that increasing supply, again, will help? It hasn't so far.

Do renewables even get a mention? Only in reference to the need for more gas.

This is despite the Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work finding that expanding the manufacturing sector will be cheapest if we do it with renewables not with the current generation mix.

Climate change, emissions reductions and the Paris Agreement don't even rate a mention.

The NCCC report - written by Saudi Aramco board member and Dow Chemical executive, Andrew Liveris - is not surprising when you consider the NCCC itself is stacked with former fossil fuel industry executives and people with links to the gas industry, not least its chair Neville Power, director of gas firm Strike Energy (a role he has since "stepped back" from).

NCCC Chair Neville Power will appear before the COVID-19 Senate Select Committee on Thursday.

He skipped the first committee hearing, for reasons unknown, where NCCC CEO Peter Harris conceded that the commission's functions were "opaque" to him.

Since that hearing, questions have been raised about obvious conflicts of interest of NCCC members and advisers, how they came to be appointed, to whom the committee reports and whether its deliberations and recommendations will be made public or kept secret.

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What is public is that Neville Power is getting paid $267,345 to cover his travel, accommodation and other expenses for six months. That's $44,500 a month.

In other words, Neville Power is paid more for travel and expenses in one month than someone on the minimum wage earns in one year. Where the hell is he travelling in a pandemic anyway?

Is Nev Power's travel allowance propping up Virgin? Where the hell is he staying that's so expensive? Hotels are empty! What are his expenses?

At $44,500 a month he could probably afford to personally finance a few gas wells.

It is time for the commission to come clean and detail exactly what discussions it has had with the gas industry.

At a time of unprecedented challenges requiring enormous government spending, Australia needs more oversight, not less.

The potential for corruption - let alone waste - is as large as it is obvious.

As taxpayers' money walks out the door with little oversight or scrutiny, the need for an independent anti-corruption commission is greater than ever.

And let's face it, the Morrison government has a track record of spending freely - not where it's needed, but where it benefits the Coalition electorally.

You only have to look at the $100 million sports rorts saga, where grants were handpicked to help the Coalition win marginal and targeted seats, to see how it works.

The same behaviour was repeated with the $150 million women's sport grants, which had no guidelines and no tender process-not even an application form.

Australia Institute research reveals a similar shonky process is underway in the energy sector to back in more gas power; fortunately, the Auditor-General has agreed to investigate Mr Taylor's Underwriting New Generation program.

For the gas industry, which crippled our manufacturing sector and drove up electricity prices, the Morrison government is rolling out the red carpet and the taxpayer subsidies.

For the university sector - which trained our doctors, nurses and teachers, on the frontline of the pandemic - the Morrison government has deliberately excluded staff from accessing JobKeeper.

Die quietly in a corner is the general message to universities. Ditto the arts and entertainment industry.

If the Prime Minister hands out money to his friends and favoured industries while excluding those industries and people in need, it's a recipe for a prolonged recession.