Cairns Chamber of Commerce president backs industry push for business aid over Easter
Business leaders in Cairns have joined a call to allow Good Friday trading in Queensland to help make up for the impact of Brisbane’s lockdown and the end of JobKeeper. HAVE YOUR SAY
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THE president of the Cairns business community’s peak body has joined a call to allow Good Friday trading to make up for expected losses from the Brisbane lockdown.
The Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called on the state government to institute Good Friday trading to help businesses make up for expected major losses as a result of Brisbane’s lockdown.
Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry executive Amanda Rohan said many businesses were already at “tipping point” with the end of the JobKeeper scheme, and the lockdown could send them over the edge.
The QCCI has also suggested disaster recovery-style payments as an option.
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Cairns Chamber of Commerce president Sally Mlikota echoed support for the move, saying it could also benefit Far North businesses.
“We’ve all been optimistically expecting things to go back to business over Easter, and now this week is shaping up to be much tougher than expected,” she said.
“Anything to help get the commercial flow within our CBD and beyond would be beneficial.
“We had business looking to be almost the same as 2019, so to have this happen again, you can really feel it in Cairns and Port Douglas that it’s hard to be optimistic.”
Ms Mlikota said disaster-recovery style payouts could also work as an option, even if the lockdown was a far cry from the cyclones and weather events they were typically reserved for.
“This will have a severe knock-on effect - people are already reporting cancellations because it’s once again sent people into that nervous panic that we were hoping was behind us,” she said.
Originally published as Cairns Chamber of Commerce president backs industry push for business aid over Easter
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