Council to discuss how to help small businesses

A special Livingstone Shire Council meeting will take place today to discuss how to help small businesses during the Coronavirus pandemic.

A special meeting will take place today to discuss how to help small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.

A SPECIAL meeting will take place today to discuss how to help small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.

The meeting comes after Capricorn Enterprise launched a Support Local, Buy Local group on Facebook on Friday afternoon which had more than 600 people join by midnight.

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland (CCIQ) called on the Queensland Government yesterday to support the state’s 450,000 businesses after Victoria and New South Wales announced packages of more than $1 billion.

Today’s Central Queensland meeting will involve Livingstone Council, the Capricornia Chamber of Commerce and Capricorn Enterprise to discuss measures the council might be able to adopt to assist small business viability.

Mayor Bill Ludwig said the special meeting was in response to calls by the industry representative groups for councils to explore opportunities to provide support for their members and the small to medium industry sectors generally.

“Last week council co-ordinated a joint teleconference of both our Economic Taskforce and Community Support Taskforce to receive updates from both taskforce groups,” he said.

“It is important that the response to this extreme event is well co-ordinated and regionally targeted to ensure those most at risk from both the disease and the economic impacts, get the maximum support as quickly as possible.

‘The extraordinary levels of financial assistance being announced by the Federal Govern­ment mitigate both the spread of the disease and the financial impacts of businesses and regional economies across the nation are certainly welcomed.

“While the ability of councils to assist in pure financial terms is likely to be limited, given the scale of the impacts, we will be looking at every measure where we can play a significant support role.

“These are certainly challenging times, which will call for whole-of-government responses. In a fast-moving environment those responses must be made in a timely manner.

The Local Disaster Management Group also will be meeting by teleconference at 8.30am to receive member and agency updates.

CCIQ’s general manager of advocacy and policy, Amanda Rohan, said the Queensland Government’s coronavirus economic relief package is one of lowest in the nation at just over $500 million.

“We have been calling for a six-month payroll tax waiver (for businesses with wages up to $5 million) which will directly support over 9000 businesses, and there has been no response,” she said. “Businesses need support now and taking away one of their major costs will be the relief they need to stabilise their jobs.”

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk yesterday said the Queensland Cabinet Budget Committee would be meeting today to discuss measures the government can put in place to help Queenslanders.

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