Coronavirus: Antisocial Victorian lockdown decision ‘cost regions millions’
Swan Hill councillor Stuart King would like a cheque from Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, an even $2.5m to $3m to capture the cost of the snap five-day lockdown.
Swan Hill councillor Stuart King would like a cheque from Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, an even $2.5m to $3m to capture the cost of the snap five-day lockdown on the regional town’s economy.
The Tennis Victoria Country Week was meant to have kicked off in the Murray River town, 340km north of Melbourne, on Sunday with more than a 1100 players plus friends, family, staff and volunteers at the famed courts over the week but was cancelled on Friday under the statewide lockdown.
Mr King said his family showed the depth of local involvement in the tournament, from his hire business renting out equipment to organisers, his daughters working at restaurants that were booked solid for the entire week, and his sister-in-law ordering extra stock for her clothing store, which she would have to discount.
“The impact on business is just devastating, not only just from a business perspective but a social perspective. There was a real hype in the town,” he said. “If the government makes significant decisions like this, they have to accept the cost of the ramifications. How do they inject $2.5m back into the Swan Hill economy?”
Businesses across regional Victoria and Melbourne have thrown out hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of food during the lockdown and lost bookings on what was one of the busiest weekends planned since the beginning of the year.
Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Paul Guerra estimated the five-day lockdown could cost businesses up to $1bn. “This was scheduled to be the busiest weekend for Victorian businesses in well over a year, with crowds scheduled to return to Flemington and the Australian Open, Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day and numerous weddings, functions and events,” he said. “Regional areas have been hit with cancelled holidays on top of that.”
Swan Hill Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club secretary Mick Mullen had overseen preparation of the courts for months, an enormous job considering Swan Hill has the most grass courts in the world. The preparations included buying hundreds of kilos of food for the tournament.
A spontaneous cookout and resale of fresh produce was organised on Friday night to try to reduce financial losses. Up to “300 people rocked up and helped raise spirits for a while,” Mr Mullen said. He said the extra sting in the cancellation was that only 10 per cent of the players would have come from Melbourne.
Among non-Melbourne players is Greg Maarschalk, representing the Westernport Penguins in the A-Grade competition. He played college tennis in South Carolina, where his opponents included top-ranked American John Isner. He has since played in Canada and Perth before settling in Sydney with his wife. Every year he takes leave to play Country Week and budgets to spend $1500 for the week.
He arrived in Melbourne last Thursday, practised on Friday morning then went to the tennis, but was on an overnight train back to Sydney that night to begin isolation: “I’d played comps and leagues, but nothing where everyone gets together for a week to compete during the day, and mingle and socialise at night.”
In East Gippsland, 314km east of Melbourne, the owner of the Metung Hotel, David Strange, 63, echoed regional Victoria’s call for recognition of a separate COVID status.
The hotel’s Twitter account has only 726 followers but one tweet was retweeted more than 3000 times: “Dear Dan, let East Gippsland open. Zero cases ever and we are just dying here 350k from [the] nearest case.”
In Melbourne’s CBD, Melina on the Rooftop co-owner Theo Roussos, 47, said they lost $35,000, not including alcohol, when Valentine’s Day was cancelled.
Entsch stonewalls on taxpayer grant questions
The LNP’s candidate for Cairns, Yolonde Entsch, has repeatedly refused to answer questions about Morrison government grants her companies received when her husband was a federal MP.
Crisafulli’s $50m anti-crime canoe camps
Children who wag school will have their phones confiscated and be sent on taxpayer-funded camps to canoe and learn coding under a LNP plan to drive down youth crime rates in Queensland.