Road map for city businesses a ‘top priority’ for Lord Mayor and Premier Daniel Andrews
Deserted city streets have pushed Melbourne businesses to the brink of collapse, but the Lord Mayor says ensuring traders can see the “light at the end of the COVID tunnel” is a top priority.
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Melbourne City Council and the State Government will join forces to reinvigorate the ailing CBD as Lord Mayor Sally Capp declared battling businesses need a light at the end of the “COVID tunnel”.
But there’s no timeline on when the help will come.
Ms Capp, who met with Premier Daniel Andrews this morning, said the effort would bring together experts to look at ways to attract people back to the city when it was safe to do so.
Projects which could create jobs and relief for struggling businesses would also be explored.
It comes after figures showed inner Melbourne had a 10.3 per cent reduction in jobs March to August, the worst affected area in Australia.
Ms Capp said businesses, many family run, were in a fight for survival as the pandemic leaves the city deserted and needed help to recover once the health danger eased.
“It’s empty,” Ms Capp said.
“We are on our knees and we have to find ways to bring customers and clients back to city businesses.
“They need to feel like there is a light at the end of this COVID tunnel and they deserve it.”
Ms Capp said she could not yet offer a timeline for initiatives with the State Government but the premier and her were clear businesses need urgent help.
“This is a top priority for him. It is a top priority for me.”
Ms Capp has formed a high-powered advisory board, including businessman Lindsay Fox, to develop ideas to get the city moving once it’s safe to do so.
It came after the Sunday Herald Sun revealed the drastic impact of the pandemic on the city centre, where pedestrian numbers are down 90 per cent.
TOP CHEF’S PLEA TO SAVE MELBOURNE RESTAURANTS
Renowned restaurateurs Guy Grossi and Liz Grossi Rodriguez have issued a passionate plea to save Melbourne’s restaurants and other businesses affected by the extended lockdown.
They have written an open letter to Victorians begging for a co-ordinated approach to simultaneously solving both the health and economic crisis caused by the coronavirus.
Guy Grossi said the 12-month extension to the State of Emergency was “a tipping point”.
“It implies we have no alternative ways forward and has sent a message to Victorians that the situation is hopeless,” he said.
“We are currently in a state of confusion and limbo. We need to know what we are going to work towards and have prospects for the future.”
Liz Grossi Rodriguez said that while the response to the health crisis caused by the pandemic was initially proportional, the move to extend state of emergency powers by 12 months raised concerns that “this is how it could be for a long time”.
“We need hope. We need a plan. We need something to work towards,” she said.
“I don’t know how long businesses can stay closed for.
“We can’t ignore all aspects to keeping businesses closed. We’ve tried for six months to stay closed, but we need a plan B,” she said.
“The community will be devastated if (small and medium businesses) can’t start functioning again in some form. We’ll be devastated economically, we’ll be devastated psychologically, we’ll be devastated in terms of quality of life. I fear we’re just digging ourselves into a bigger and bigger mess. And making it harder and harder to climb back out of.”
Guy Grossi said he hoped the letter would inspire the community to work together to find solutions.
“If we can have a plan forward, then we can start to work towards that. Everyone is prepared to put in the hard yards but with no end in sight, it’s just hopeless,” he said.
In their letter they state the COVID crisis will be with us for generations to come.”
“The COVID crisis includes the pandemic itself from an immediate health perspective but also includes the impacts we will be suffering and causal effects of the decisions made right now in its response.
“This is a crisis of long term physical health consequences, mental health conditions … poverty, homelessness (and) long term unemployment.”
Grossi Rodriguez said there will come a time for most small and medium businesses in Victoria that they will be forced to close forever.
“There will come a time, in three months, six months, whenever it is, when businesses say we cannot incur any more debt, we cannot incur any more personal debt and it has to stop,” Grossi Rodriguez said.
“If that happens to the majority, then it’s a pretty bleak future.
“We need to understand how we are going to move forward so we can open, we can operate and we can live with this for the next 12 to 24 months simultaneously, not one way or another.”
The Grossi’s plea follows that of restaurateur Chris Lucas of Lucas Group who called on the government to provide a road map out of lockdown.
He said the government’s call to extend State of Emergency powers for another 12 months “drew a line in the sand”.
“On behalf of the industry, we need a plan. And if the plan can’t be provided now, when can that be provided? We need to know, and I think we deserve it,” he said.
“People are traumatised. Our industry is made up of young people. I think the sleeper in our industry is the mental wellbeing, the damage being done to the psychology of young people in the industry who simply don’t have the tools to deal with such a prolonged crisis,” he said.
Rinaldo di Stasio also penned an open letter to the government pleading for guidance from the government on what the future will hold for Melbourne’s world-famous restaurant industry.
READ THE GROSSIS’ LETTER IN FULL:
August 2020
Dear All,
Business is the back bone of Australia. Business big and small.
An ongoing unilateral approach to managing the COVID crisis, has broken the Australian backbone.
It is obvious that the virus will not disappear in September or October or November. We don’t know when the virus will be over, if ever at all.
It is time to manage the multiple facets of this crisis simultaneously.
A State of Emergency may very well have been necessary in the immediate response to a pandemic. Controlling the spread of infection to a size that current infrastructure could manage to limit tragic, untimely death and suffering.
As part of such a response immeasurable personal sacrifices have been made by the community.
However, resorting to a long term extension of a State of Emergency, despite new cases decreasing, ‘in case’ the government wishes to impose further lock downs or restrictions, raises significant concern as to the preparedness to manage and control spikes in infection and a lack of consideration of the consequences and further aspects of harm due to combating this crisis unilaterally.
COVID-19 is a disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus which has caused a global pandemic. But the COVID CRISIS is much more than that.
The COVID crisis will be with us for generations to come. It will live beyond any eradication, vaccine, cure or herd immunity of the disease, depending on what you believe to be the best management plan.
The COVID crisis includes the pandemic itself from an immediate health perspective but also includes the impacts we will be suffering and causal effects of the decisions made right now in its response.
This is a crisis of long term physical health consequences, mental health conditions, long term behavioural abnormalities, long term financial consequences, poverty, homelessness, educational impact, loss of intellectual capital, long term unemployment, depravation of quality of life, increases in inequality, lack of ability to innovate, lack of ability to provide for those most in need, reduction in the ability to maintain quality essential services.
No crisis or emergency situation can be dealt with well if it is not dealt with from the multiple facets of the threat, damage or concern. Or without profound consideration of the consequences of every action.
Businesses, particularly small to medium enterprises which make up the vast majority of job providers, have been dealing with the effects of the pandemic (as everyone has) as well as having theirs and their employees, livelihoods destroyed due to a unilateral approach.
In good faith, businesses and their trusted employees complied. Sacrificing a lifetime (and in some cases, generations) of hard work and personal wellbeing. All while simultaneously dealing with their own personal encounters with the virus itself.
The Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 only allows a State of Emergency to operate for six months.
Disregarding democratic intent and democratic safeguarding of the act by extending a state of emergency for 12 months, effectively demonstrates that there is no endgame plan in sight, we do not have the systems, skills, infrastructure or know how that we should have had or at least should have developed in the last six months, to manage this crisis in the best interest of the whole population.
Business owners and their employees are being disproportionately persecuted.
Owners of small to medium enterprise account for 93.8% of businesses. Further, small businesses account for 35% of Australia’s gross domestic profit and employ 44% of Australia’s workforce. (Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman 2019)
The very revenue that is crucial for investing in the health system, human resources, operational mechanisms, mental health system, education, etc for managing this crisis effectively, and the general wellbeing of the community and survival of the state is derived from the activity of business and the process of employing people.
This resource can no longer be under threat. Business can no longer be the subject of pervasive legislation. It can no longer be vilified and it can no longer be ignored. Business owners and their employees are hardworking contributing members of the community and without this vital sector in operation the vital resources needed to have a functioning community let alone manage any crisis, will be non-existent.
The COVID disease is a tragedy that has befallen the globe.
It has tested our resources, capabilities and our decision making.
This is not a time for rigidness in our approach without consideration of multiple facets of a crisis which is clearly resulting in loss of basic freedoms and rights, long term unemployment, misery, violation of basic human needs and tragically – loss of life.
What we face is frightening. Our community desperately needs the contribution of the greatest intellectual capital and practitioner experience to guide us to safety now and in the long term with depth of consideration of the whole picture.
For the sake of all Victorians, will you contribute your expertise and influence to a long term equitable solution to this crisis through any reasonable means.
Sincerely,
Guy Grossi
Liz Grossi Rodriguez GAICD
Grossi Restaurants
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