Bushfires: down to business to help recovery

Bushfire-affected small businesses will get the chance to tell Scott Morrison what they need to rebuild their livelihoods.

Bushfire-affected small businesses will get the chance to tell Scott Morrison what they need to rebuild their livelihoods at a roundtable in Canberra on Tuesday, with measures to boost tourism high on the agenda.

The Prime Minister, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Small Business Minister Michaelia Cash will meet industry groups, including the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Master Grocers Association.

Small-business owners from bushfire-hit areas will join the meeting by phone.

Senator Cash said the businesses were “viable but vulnerable” and the government would do whatever it could to get them back on their feet.

“On top of the many measures of assistance we have put in place with all levels of government, we are open to ideas and proposals from stakeholders that will see these local economies through the recovery and beyond,” she said.

“This roundtable is a perfect opportunity for that to happen.”

COSBOA chief executive Peter Strong estimated that more than 100,000 businesses had been affected by the bushfires in Victoria and NSW alone. “(The government) want us to put together a plan,” he said.

Mr Strong said proposed measures would not just focus on immediate responses but seek to support businesspeople over the next 12 to 24 months.

Tourism operators and accommodation providers along the NSW south coast have been hit hard by the emergency, which resulted in visitors being told to flee.

Shoalhaven City Council economic development manager Greg Pullen said the NSW coastal ­region’s population of 105,000 normally more than tripled over the summer.

Visitors were now trickling back in to Nowra, Mr Pullen said, but the region’s accommodation sector was operating at only an estimated 50 per cent.

“For most of these smaller businesses on the coast, in December, January, February and March they earn 80 per cent of their turnover,” he said. “Many have to make mortgage payments and all are depending on good trading through the peak time. They’ve had to lay off staff.”

Small enterprises that have given employees paid time off to deal with the fallout from bushfires face the extra cost of hiring short-term replacements.

Mr Pullen said putting money towards attracting visitors in the months ahead was a key requirement to ensure battered small businesses would survive.

The NSW Rural Fire Service on Saturday announced the south coast was “open for business” and it was safe for tourists to return to areas previously deemed too dangerous to visit.

Tourism operator Southbound Escapes owner Sally Bouckley said for many, the damage had already been done; her own business had been heavily affected by the fires.

On Monday, she travelled from Sydney back to her home in ­Narooma, visiting tourism operators along the way.

“I wanted to see how people are faring, and it’s not good,” she said. “It’s really devastating.”

Ms Bouckley said the biggest immediate challenge for south coast businesses was a cashflow crunch.

“We need to recover, we need instant income. And we need visit­ors to come back, and to book later in the year.

“The government packages cover infrastructure, but there’s nothing on tourism,” she said.