Businesses push back on Dan Andrew’s Melbourne lockdown road map
The Myer boss has lashed Victoria’s post-lockdown plan, saying there is a glaring issue that could lead to a surge in infections.
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Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews has stood by his government’s post-lockdown strategy despite public criticism and business leaders pushing back, labelling it “a box-ticking exercise”.
CSL chairman Brian McNamee on Thursday hit out at the Premier’s lockdown plan and labelled it a “map for misery”, theHerald Sun reported.
Myer CEO John King branded the state government’s consultation with business a “box-ticking exercise”, and said a lockdown of most retail until the end of October risked “devastating” scores of businesses.
The Myer boss questioned the logic of Victoria’s road map out of lockdown, noting that holding off opening up bricks and mortar retail until late October at the earliest was likely to create more crowded stores in the countdown to Christmas. He added that he thinks businesses need “a staged release”.
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Part of Victoria’s road map out of lockdown was getting daily COVID-19 infections down to just five a day.
“Five cases a day is not an absolute hard and fast rule and the date is not a hard and fast date,” Mr Andrews. “We need to look at this every day. We’re going to look at the improvements that have been made to case management and contact management.
“Modelling is only one piece of information that we’re using to decide on these thresholds. There is going to be a lot of judgment as we get to low levels.”
Cases in Victoria have dropped for the past two days, with 41 new infections recorded today.
Myer released its financial year results yesterday, showing a significant fall in sales, while it saw a massive uptick in online sales due to changing consumer behaviour because of the pandemic.
Myer closed all 60 stores in the height of the pandemic, which greatly affected sales figures, dropping almost 16 per cent for the financial year.
The department store retailer had a net loss of $172.4 million for the financial year, compared to the net profit of $24.5 million in the previous financial year.
Its online sales lifted 61 per cent, however, as shoppers change their buying behaviour during the pandemic.
For the second half of the 2020 financial year, online sales grew 99 per cent compared to the prior year. The significant increase in online sales made up 17 per cent of total sales for the department store.
The department store saw reduced traffic to stores mainly in the CBD areas as more people started working from home.
The growth in online sales was bolstered by agreements with Australia Post and Amazon announced last month.
Originally published as Businesses push back on Dan Andrew’s Melbourne lockdown road map