Chinese-owned Torquay Sands Resort received $500,000 in failed hotel quarantine scheme
A luxury resort on Victoria’s coast received over half a million dollars in taxpayer funds from the Andrews Government despite being under investigation for fraud.
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A Chinese-owned luxury resort on the Victorian coast received more than $500,000 from the Andrews government as part of its hotel quarantine program, despite housing no guests.
The Sands Golf Resort in Torquay had been sanctioned by Australian Border Force for visa fraud just six days before it was awarded the lucrative state government grant, and went into receivership owing the government and employees more than $1 million just three months later, the Australian reports.
The agreement involved payment for 55 rooms at the resort at a cost of $150 per night per guest over a two-month period. In total, the failed contract is believed to have cost Victorian taxpayers a total of $511,500.
The resort has been owned by Walden Cloud Group since 2017, a Chinese-linked company, which owes the Australian Tax Office approximately $992,000.
Aly Boland, a former resort employee said that prior to COVID the financial situation was so dire “we had to stop taking bookings because they hadn’t paid the laundry bill and we had no linen.”
The 46-year-old, who is owed around $7000 in superannuation payments said, “People asked me why I was sticking around, and to be honest when we got the hotel quarantine contract, I thought, ‘Well at least there’s money coming in so we’ll hopefully get paid’.”
But despite the generous government handout, Boland still did not receive the super she was owed.
“I guess that money just went to China. Who knows?” Ms Boland told the Australian.
“I’m just a little bit taken aback by the fact that the government gave $500,000 to a company that clearly was being investigated by the ATO and Immigration.”
The Sands is just one of more than a dozen hotels that received quarantine funding from the Victorian government without ever housing any guests.
Retired Judge Jennifer Coate, who is heading the inquiry into the government’s failed hotel quarantine program, is set to deliver an interim report on her investigations on Friday. To date, the inquiry has revealed a number of serious breaches and failings at almost all levels of management and saw the country’s worst outbreak of coronavirus that left Melbourne and parts of greater Victoria in lockdown for months.