Retail, hospitality heads want pandemic payments back as cases surge

Australia’s retail and hospitality peak bodies have joined with the union movement and medical experts in calling on the government to reintroduce a COVID sick-leave safety net as cases surge.

Labor last week axed the $750-a-week pandemic leave disaster payment, which cost almost $1.9 billion since it was introduced by the Morrison government in August 2020 to tide over COVID-positive Australians without sick leave.

Julian O’Neill, who works at Eatz Cafe, Darlington, is waiting on a pandemic relief payment after he needed to isolate for seven days in late June. Credit: Louise Kennerley

The Albanese government backed the Coalition’s decision last year to scrap the payment at the end of the 2021-22 financial year, citing a $1 trillion national debt and less stringent restrictions. However, as daily cases surpass 43,000 across Australia, those who test positive are still legally required to isolate for seven days in all states and territories.

Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt said in a statement the nation was in a different phase of the pandemic now “where we live with community transmission”.

“The requirements for when people need to isolate and for how long have been significantly reduced since the payment was introduced,” Watt said. “We inherited a budget with a trillion dollars of debt, so keeping to the plan of letting these payments expire 2.5 years into the pandemic is the responsible thing to do.”

The number of people working fewer hours due to their own illness in May 2022 (780,500 people) was the highest level recorded in five years, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Businesses are concerned that sick days will surge along with cases throughout winter, as one of Australia’s top pandemic advisers, Professor James McCaw, warned that the impending Omicron wave could be the worst outbreak the nation has seen.

The decision to scrap the isolation safety net has raised the ire of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, with its president Michele O’Neil branding it “short-term thinking”, while Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union Steve Murphy foreshadowed escalating action if the government didn’t rethink its decision.

“Whatever we need to do to get the attention of the government, we will do,” Murphy said, setting up the movement’s first collision course with the new Labor government, while calling on them to stand behind their praise of the pandemic’s frontline workers.

“Now it’s time to put those deeds into action, they’re still on the frontline and no less essential than they were two years ago.”

Andrew McKellar, chief executive Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, backed scrapping the payments “given unprecedented deficit and debt levels”, but industry associations with high numbers of casuals are concerned casual staff with no fallback will work while infectious and spread disease.

Australian Retailers’ Association boss Paul Zahra was among the industry heads calling for the reinstatement of a modified safety net for people with no sick leave, saying the removal of the benefit “comes as staff absences and labour shortages continue to cripple the economy”.

“While a lot of progress has been made in terms of how we live with COVID, we need to strike the right balance where vulnerable people forced out of work continue to be supported,” Zahra said.

Restaurant and Catering Australia head Belinda Clarke said that without the paid leave, “there could be an increased spread of COVID-19 among hospitality staff which would strain the labour force in our industry”.

Julian O’Neill, a barista at Eatz Cafe in Darlington, inner Sydney, said he was waiting on a disaster relief payment he applied for in late June after coming down with COVID-19.

“A lot of us live week-to-week,” he said of casual hospitality workers. “So if you are sick, and you’re not working full time, so you don’t get sick leave, you miss out on money for groceries, rent, bills, just life.”

To qualify for the emergency payment, applicants who tested positive had to lose at least eight hours of paid income and have less than $10,000 in liquid assets.

Fynn Barker, a cook at Small Time Group pizzeria in the inner Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, would like to see the payments return.

Fynn Barker, a casual cook at Smalltime Group pizza in Brunswick, said “missing a week of work would put me in a pretty tough spot”. Credit: Justin McManus

“Inflation and electricity prices are high, my bills have nearly doubled this month, and rent’s gone up as well,” he said. “Missing a week of work would put me in a pretty tough spot.”

People who started their isolation on June 30 will still be able to apply for the payment until 13 July 2022, but anyone whose isolation period starts after June 30 is not eligible.

But Australian Medical Association president Dr Omar Khorshid also backed the payments’ retention, saying the government was sending mixed signals about its approach to the pandemic by extending its hospital funding to states and announcing a fourth vaccine dose, but slashing telehealth services and axing the safety net.

“It’s literally a choice between following public health directions and having no income for a week,” he said of workers with no sick leave.

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