Newsroom

January 11, 2022

Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) Deputy Leader and Member for Hinchinbrook, Nick Dametto, has said the Queensland State Government has dropped the ball on financial support to north Queensland businesses post-opening, and said it is ill-prepared to support north Queensland firms during the omicron wave.

Mr Dametto has said the grant programs set up by the Queensland State Government to support businesses during the pandemic are “closed,” with little or nothing there to replace them.

Mr Dametto has questioned why the same kind of supports available to individuals with nothing to fall back on while self-isolating or unable to work due to COVID aren’t being extended to small businesses.

“’Disaster payments’ to individuals told to self-isolate can be as much as $750 a week cash in hand, but a small business needing help to get through a rough patch brought on by the same circumstances is on their own,” Mr Dametto said.

“The business supports available during the period in which the state was locked down in August eclipse what’s out there right now,” Mr Dametto said.

Mr Dametto said the programs, which offered grants of up to $30,000 for tourism and hospitality operators, and $10,000 for small businesses, were appropriate for the time.

However, Mr Dametto said the Queensland State Government currently has little in the way of grants for businesses struggling to stay afloat, despite the impact of the omicron wave on foot traffic and staff availability closing businesses because of self-isolation rules.

Mr Dametto said, anecdotally, the turn-over of many businesses, particularly in tourism and hospitality, is down significantly because of omicron, and governments need to respond with the appropriate support.

“A business can apply for a cleaning rebate of up to $10,000, but if a business needs help with rent, paying suppliers or payroll, there’s nothing available for that,” Mr Dametto said.

Mr Dametto said the State government should have anticipated that the COVID wave would impact already-struggling small businesses and had a suite of grant programs ready to go.

“All they needed to do was look at other jurisdictions to see what living with COVID was going to be like,” Mr Dametto said.

“The Queensland Government has said ‘no more lockdowns,’ a proposition we support, but that doesn’t mean the government steps out of the picture altogether,” Mr Dametto said.

Mr Dametto said he would like to see a temporary re-opening of the COVID grants made available in August, and for government to consider a range of on-going supports to prevent businesses from going under.

“We’re not out of the woods and won’t be for a while but the long-term cost to the Queensland economy of letting businesses fail because of COVID far outweighs the price of any supports governments can provide right now,” Mr Dametto said.