Melbourne racing to reopen after lockdown

Small businesses are champing to reopen along Melbourne’s shopping strips but bringing the city fully back to life could take some time.

Chefs prepare meals for testing during a staff orientation day as Tiamo Bistro readies for opening in Melbourne on October 27, 2020. Picture: William WEST / AFP

Small businesses are champing to reopen along Melbourne’s shopping strips but bringing the city fully back to life could take some time.

Carlton restaurant Tiamo, a Melbourne institution on the city’s famed Lygon Street, was preparing for table service to resume on Thursday.

Tiamo director Carl Masini predicted the opening would be huge after months of being closed.

“When it was announced the phones were run off the hook, we’ve overbooked ... We’ll come back with a full house for Thursday, Friday, Saturday,” he said.  “We’re opening up Thursday because we need the time to get ready. A lot of businesses don’t have time to get ready; they need to rehire staff, stock up.”

Up and down the dining strip restaurants are putting out chairs and tables, ordering stock, and bringing staff back in ahead of a re-emergence of the Melbourne dining scene.

Tiamo will boost staff numbers to 12 to cope with the expected surge, up from the skeleton crew of four who had manned the decks to handle takeaway during lockdown.

“We’ve built up a strong loyal base of regular patronage — we’re one of the lucky ones,” Mr Masini said in a nod to the pandemic’s toll on small businesses. “Some other businesses weren’t in that position. I would hate to be a business that opened up in the last two or three years.”

While the Italian restaurant gets back into action, the Andrews government is facing steep hurdles in bringing workers back to the CBD by Christmas, sparking calls for further stimulus to spark life into the city.

Some of the city’s biggest corporate companies are reluctant to bring staff back too quickly in the wake of the city’s strict Stage 4 lockdown, with no return to work date set for office workers who can work from home.

The prospect of an extended out-of-office period is looming, with companies and landlords saying their situation had yet to change although they had made plans for safe returns. Their decisions have been partly driven by health directives but also global and national work policies which have effectively allowed people to work from home while the pandemic presents a risk.

Melbourne-based Reserve Bank board member and new Equities Trustees chairman Carol Schwartz said she was positive about the immediate future for Melbourne following the lifting of the lockdown.

“The positivity and the optimism of people I know in business is very clear. I think we are going to rebound a lot, so I am very positive about Melbourne,’’ she said.

“We as Victorians have done an amazing job. We have come together as a community to work really hard. Daniel Andrews has been leading us through in a determined and steadfast way. He has been incredibly determined in doing that.”

Ms Schwartz said she understood the frustration about the extended lockdown.

“But at the end of the day, when you are a grown up you have to deal with things. Focus on getting to solutions and stop throwing bombs. We are all going to make mistakes and none of us is foolproof. It is easy to throw bombs. It is very hard to make the tough decisions,” she said.

But former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett, who has been a vocal critic of Mr Andrews through the Stage 4 lockdown, said it would take at least five years for Melbourne to rebound to what it was.

“The ones I feel most sorry for are those small businesses — tourism, catering, retail — many won’t reopen. Many have seen a life’s work destroyed, there will be no comeback.

“Having experienced the 80s and having to rebuild Victoria, while there will be a lot of people who will continue to be em­ployed, the reality is that it will take us at least five years to get back to where we were pre-COVID, if we can get there at all,’’ Mr Kennett said.

“My fear is we are going to lose a lot of young people who will go interstate and overseas looking for employment. Yes I am optimistic about the future, but in order to be optimistic, you have to be realistic as well. You are not going to just be able to turn the tap back on. We have many industries now, particularly agriculture, that can’t get staff. This has been a six to nine month period we have never witnessed in our lives. There are a lot of things happening at the moment that are going to take a lot of time to rebuild.”

Urban Development Institute of Australia’s Victoria CEO, Danni Hunter, whose outspoken campaign helped ease restrictions in the building industry, said it was essential to get workers back into the CBD, saying “every single day” it was closed the economy suffered.

Ms Hunter said the impact was not just on offices but also on retail and hospitality operators in the CBD, and confidence was required in transport systems as well as measures taken by building managers and owners.

“We’ve got to do that for a broader recovery; otherwise the city will just stagnate,” Ms Hunter said.

“The government needs to get on and stimulate the demand side of the economy.

“We are very concerned about demand drivers.”

Property Council of Australia chief executive Ken Morrison said a “clear pathway” for people to return to their CBD office workplaces would be a “vital” part of Victoria’s recovery from the impact of the lockdown.

The peak body estimated that Melbourne CBD generates more than $100bn in economic output and accounts for almost one quarter of Victoria’s gross state product, supporting almost half a million jobs across 16,800 businesses.

Additional reporting: Damon Kitney