Luke Mangan calls to extend JobKeeper; end GST and lockdown for restaurants

Celebrity chef Luke Mangan will meet with the Premier and Treasurer next week to discuss how to save the hospitality industry, including the option of getting rid of the payroll tax.

Celebrity chef Luke Mangan is calling for a complete abolition of the “insidious” payroll tax and clear reopening targets to save the crippled hospitality industry.

Mangan will meet with Premier Gladys Berejiklian and NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet next week to push for these measures, as well as calling for restaurants to be given more time to prepare for lockdown, instead of just a few hours before shutting down trade.

“You look what happened in Victoria … you had restaurants building up for the weekend trade and then it’s all shut down at midnight on Thursday night with hardly any notice,” Mangan said.

“So they have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of produce sitting in your cold rooms. What are they supposed to be doing with that?

“Then you see how the construction industry has been treated. They were given notice to shutdown, then notice to re-open. That’s great for them, they will be up and running again but we have been out of pocket for some time and they have only been hit over the last week and a half or so.

“Look, I sympathise with them as much as any industry affected by this.

“But it wouldn’t hurt them to take a deep breath and just sort of feel the pain of every other industry.”

Chef Luke Mangan at his restaurant Glass Brasserie, which has been hit hard like others in the hospitality industry. Picture: Tim Hunter

Mangan also believes the JobKeeper 3.0 offering, which offers a payment of as much as $600 a week for full-time staff — but allows employers to “top-up” at their discretion — doesn’t do enough to save businesses.

“All of the rigmarole that’s required to access it is a major problem,” he said.

“What happened to the first JobKeeper payment of $750? The problem is nobody’s situation has changed and yet the money is decreasing and being pulled back or dropped entirely too quickly.”

Mangan’s criticism of the government follows a number of high-profile chefs and restaurateurs who have also savaged what is — or isn’t — being done to adequately support the industry in the latest lockdown.

Neil Perry, who was forced to shut his multimillion-dollar Double Bay eatery Margaret on the eve of its opening night, made his thoughts clear this week when he took to Instagram to lampoon the construction industry’s green light to re-open on July 31.