Budget 2020: The family who’s had it with COVID — and why they’re brewing hope
In the lead-up to Budget we’ll meet Claire Neil’s extended family group, plus a few close friends, to see how COVID-19 has touched all Australians. From lockdown in Melbourne to intensive care in Manhattan, this family has seen it all - and they have high Budget hopes.
In the lead-up to Budget we’ll meet Claire Neil’s extended family group, plus a few close friends, to see how COVID-19 has touched all Australians. From lockdown in Melbourne to intensive care in Manhattan, this family has seen it all - and they have high Budget hopes.
With elderly parents, three children to homeschool, a business to run and an ambitious new project about to launch, Sydney pilates teacher Claire Neil had a lot to lose when COVID-19 struck.
She also had a lot to fight for, and now she and husband Mick are looking to the federal budget to help them defy the odds. They’re hoping for accelerated income tax cuts, excise relief for their small brewery, wage incentives to employ new staff and small business grants.
“Everywhere you turn, people are suffering,” Ms Neil, 42, told The Australian.
“We were in the middle of building the brewery, I lost my pilates work, which was like losing my identity, and I had to suddenly become a teacher to three kids.
“My Dad is not well so my parents were very isolated and anxiety levels have been so high. But I feel like everyone I speak to is going through something.”
The entrepreneurial inner-west couple co-founded craft beer brand Philter in a Marrickville backyard in 2017. Since then, it has won national awards and brews some 1.5 million litres a year. A brewery and bar in their home suburb was to be the latest jewel in Philter’s crown for 2020 — and then entered coronavirus.
“We had to find a way to brew beer as fast as we could, and that meant getting the construction of the brewery done,” said Ms Neil, who homeschooled Zac, 12, Jared, 10, and Spencer, 7, before they returned to Camdenville Public School this term.
They paused personal mortgages, took pay cuts, used JobKeeper to retain Philter’s 20-strong staff and accepted rental relief from the brewery’s landlord to get the job done — and they did: Philter Brewery opened its doors to the public for the first time last month.
While Philter income had dropped at least 30 per cent to receive JobKeeper payments for the past six months, they will be ineligible for future support through the program, and are eagerly waiting to learn whether Josh Frydenberg will deliver small business grants and wage incentives to employ more staff.
The Australian revealed on Monday that Scott Morrison was considering wage incentives for businesses to take on extra workers as part of a comprehensive jobs plan.
The jobs incentive plan would likely involve the government making a conditional contribution towards the wages of new employees so small and medium-sized businesses could take on extra staff as the government seeks to drive down the unemployment rate.
Coalition MPs are expecting already legislated personal income tax cuts targeting the top threshold will also be brought forward in the budget. The Australian has previously reported the HomeBuilder construction package is also likely to be extended.
“This upcoming budget is really important for small businesses and anyone who is really just hanging on at the moment,” said Mr Neil, whose family income bracket is between $150,000 and $200,000.
“It is very significant — there is so much uncertainty about whether we will go into a second wave of shutdowns here in NSW so people will be sitting pretty tight on what savings they can take from this budget.”
The Neils believe small craft breweries like theirs should be given the same excise relief as small wine producers. They can currently claim a 60 per cent refund of excise duty paid, up to $100,000. This is up from just $30,000, a change that came into effect last year, but still well below the refund offered to wineries.
“We want small craft breweries to be treated the same as small wine producers in terms of tax relief — the tax we pay is off the charts,” Mr Neil said. “As an industry, we’ve never really had a fair go when it comes to that, and that may be because the wine industry has been around for so long and we haven’t — but they can claim up $350,000 … that’s a huge difference and would mean so much to our business.
“For us, because we are a growth business, we are not making a profit, so anything we make is being invested back into the business — we want it to grow, we want it to succeed and make the most of this situation,” he said.
“JobKeeper was a great help until now, but it does not entice businesses in growth to continue to grow.
“It would be great to see more initiatives for small businesses — we are trying to kick-start the economy. But it takes money to do that.”
Free childcare for families with younger children was a significant help, and while the Neils paused their mortgages in the short term, that wasn’t something they would continue.
The Neils’ children may be the ones to lose out in the budget. Treasury estimated in July the country — and the next generation — would be lumped with a $850bn gross debt bill as a result of the response to the pandemic.
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