Coronavirus: Premier accuses Scentre Group over ignoring Westfield virus warnings

Amid a bitter rent battle, Westfield owner accused of twice failing to take action over COVID-19 contact at one of its malls - a charge it hotly denies.

Retailer Premier Investments says Westfield Carindale shoppers were put at risk because the mall’s owners did not act on coronavirus information. Picture: Tara Croser.

Billionaire retailer Solomon Lew has launched a savage attack on Australia’s shopping malls remaining open despite the coronavirus threat and made direct allegations about one ignoring information about a possible health threat at a Queensland mall.

The allegations come a day after Mr Lew’s Premier Investments announced it would close down more than 1200 Just Jeans, Portmans, Dotti and Smiggle stores across Australia, saying that it would not be paying rent to landlords for the period of the shutdown. Premier stood down around 9000 staff as a result of the decision.

In a public statement, Premier CEO Mark McInnes accused Scentre, which operates Westfield malls in Australia, of doing nothing when a case of possible transmission of the coronavirus at its Carindale mall in Queensland was brought to its attention. Scentre Group hit back at the allegations, saying it had followed health protocols established for Queensland.

“We have had two incidents in Scentre Group’s Carindale mall where our team members were exposed to COVID-19-positive customers. And in both instances, when Scentre was notified, they took no action,’’ Mr McInnes said in the statement.

“We were made aware of these incidents by the affected customers themselves and the Queensland Health Department. We then notified Scentre, who to our knowledge took no steps to notify the other tenants, customers or the community of Carindale that positive COVID-19 cases had been shopping in the mall.

“COVID-19 is a deadly virus and it is unacceptable for landlords to play roulette with the lives of retail employees and customers by not doing everything they can to protect them,” Mr McInnes said. “We made the toughest decision to close our stores and stand down our team yesterday because we could not allow our team members, our customers and their families to continue to take the risk posed by our continued trading.’’

But a Scentre spokeswoman said the company had responded appropriately and followed Queensland Health protocols. “The health and wellbeing of our customers, retail partners and people is our highest priority. We have very high standards of cleanliness and hygiene across our centres and have adopted the necessary precautions in our operations,’’ she told The Australian.

“In relation to Westfield Carindale, our retail partners and centre management followed the correct Queensland Health protocols. The Queensland Health advice was these individuals posed no risk to any customers, retailers or employees.

“As a precaution, the relevant retailers closed their stores temporarily for deep cleaning. Centre management also conducted additional cleaning. We continue to follow the advice of health authorities.”

Mr Lew said on Thursday he would not pay any rent due on his stores while the closures remained in place. On Friday Mr McInnes questioned the responses made by mall owners through the media, as well as their stated commitment to “Team Australia”.

His statement listed a series of questions he said landlords needed to answer, including why their malls were still open when people were being asked to stay at home, why no medical measures had been put in placed to protect mall customers against the virus threat and why customers were not being screened upon entering shopping centres.

Pointedly, he also asked: “Where you have been made aware of infected customers and workers entering your shopping centres, have you taken all steps to advise all your tenants, all your customers and the entire local community of the risk?”.

Mr McInnes also asked retail landlords to detail the short and long term rental assistance they were providing to tenants, as well as details of visits to malls by people positively identified as having been infected with the COVID-19 virus who had visited malls.

“The answers to these questions will determine whether any retail landlord has the right to talk about Team Australia,” Mr McInnes said.

“Premier calls on everyone in the Australian community to do their part in protecting our people and our country from the devastating health and economic impacts of COVID-19 so that we can recover and reopen as soon as possible.”