Under current settings working from home probably saves energy. Look at home aircon versus a petroleum fuelled commute and office aircon. A litre of petrol has about 10 kilowatt hours thermal energy. A 40 km each way commute at 5L/100km will use 4L per day or 40 kwh. No way the home aircon can use that much more energy than the office aircon.

That kind of cost comparison has to be reworked for heat energy vs electricity, summer and winter. However it means employers could pay home workers less as they'll need less income to survive. If working from home is clawed back I think it will be for other reasons like 'corporate culture'.

Taswegian

I think your obsessed. I am too. I’m obsessed with the Chinese scumbags that have driven the West into a decrepit corner we’re unlikely to escape from and into an unknown future more divisive of the haves and have knots.

Herein is the too well off Ross, obsessing over his real estate pile and the inconvenience of his world which includes all the good hardworking people on one side, and scummy street-dwellers on the other.

Obviously he has forgotten that living in little boxes all made out of ticky-tacky and all looking just the same, is a modern day reservation of the well off. Too well off!
He harbours secret longings to join a BLM protest march through the hordes of the homeless, who will dutifully move sideways, making room for the gated communities to inflict their snobbery on the real world, in a feel-good moment of conscience cleansing.

Over on this side of life where working from home doesn’t include an office under a boat, I face off with the enemy which is not as you might think, Mother Nature, but actually the government and it’s overbearing lacqueys’ determined to strip me of the ability to launch a boat by taking away my drivers license. Ageism not working from home is the burden of pain to most around me!

Dan

There is nothing "positive" about empty shops and streets, or any of the other results of politicians' stupid, totalitarian actions against the China virus. 99% of people never had anything but a slight 'wog', and the old people who died already had one foot in the grave. Old people are "valued" only when it suits the elites anyway, and they die from the harmless-to-everyone else flu in droves every year. I'm old, and I don't want slimy politicians' faux concern. They have never worried about me prior to the China virus; it's just the creeps flexing their power.

It is unbelievable that people working at home in their singlet and underpants are as efficient without an atmosphere of work activity provided by other people around them; that they put in a good day's work unsupervised. People are herd animals. They need other people. When I worked, going there and coming home on the bus with people you saw every day and expected to see, even if you never knew their names, but recognised them off the bus enough to nod to, was all part of the process. I liked it, even though I'm not a particularly sociable person. I shudder to think what enforced isolation does to others who actually like people. The lack of familiar people other than personal friends and families is what makes retirement hard for many people. So the idiot politicians whiz that off them when they should be out at work and hint that it will be the "new normal".

It is not "WE (who) are making things worse than they need to be…"; it is THEY, our now obvious (if you didn't know before) enemies: politicians and 'experts', who allow non-human (computer models) to do their thinking for them.

The lockdown-induced destruction of small business is a tragedy for mainstream Australia and the Australian way of life. In the meantime, government, the public service and bureaucracies grow bigger and more menacing to our freedoms.

We've already faced one summer of covid-19 and working from home. And massively adapted to working from home! Shopping online!

We do not owe the developers of shopping centres anything! Nor is there a case or going back into them as crammed in crowds with a dozen or so contagious super spreaders starting third and forth waves.

A second wave was a disaster, a third and a possible fourth? Catastrophe followed by a calamitous crisis of unparalleled proportions!

If we want to reopen we need to deploy what we now have, the reliable, 3 minute breath test. And we need to put/deploy it where folk can't drive, run or walk around, Airports, the turnstiles at sporting/entertainment venues, convenient bridges, etc.

We will need to live with this virus until there is a reliable, safe and effective vaccine and a 95% takeup rate. In the interim, not very much is going to change very soon!

In fact I see cities emptying out and folk looking for a tree/sea change!

And as a permanent feature of a smaller Australia! Now from where I sit, I see that as progress! And the sane return of the backyard!

Summers spent around and in the pool/a shade sail and under beach umbrellas. In fact you could employ the laptop just as easily from similar locations/situations! Nothing is ever going to be the same! Get used to it!
Alan B.

Dan. You don't need a licence to drive a tinnie powered by a 9 horse outboard. And you don't need a licence for a bike or adult trycicle. In fact, some of the E-bike variations can carry/transport a fair amount of gear. Trouble is, old mate. the most suitable and affordable versions, come from China. And we know how much you, sob, weep, hate them!
Alan B.