Coronavirus: Pubs hit hard by ‘police state’ policy

Australia risks becoming a police state if state borders are not reopened as a matter of urgency, SA’s biggest hotelier has warned.

Lucy Kolizos, manager of the Arkaba Hotel, one of Peter Hurley’s suite of hotels in South Australia, which has seen occupancy rates plummet. Picture: Morgan Sette

Australia risks becoming a police state and hundreds more jobs and businesses will be lost if state borders are not reopened as a matter of urgency, South Australia’s biggest hotelier has warned.

Publican Peter Hurley — who owns a suite of ­hotels across suburban Adelaide and regional SA, five of which offer accommo­dation — said that of his 700 staff, 100 were not eligible for JobKeeper and were “desperate” for the economy to start up again.

A former schoolteacher, Mr Hurley got his start more than 40 years ago as a country publican and was a long-serving president of the SA branch of the AHA.

He recently ploughed millions of dollars into his Marion Hotel upgrade in Adelaide’s south, with a 62-room refit to service interstate health and retail travellers working at the nearby Flinders Medical Centre and Marion Shopping Centres, all of whom have vanished during the lockdown.

With the borders closed, occupancy rates have been smashed at his city hotels including his landmark 62-room Arkaba Hotel, as well as his regional hotels in the tuna capital of Port Lincoln and the Murray River township of Mannum, which have 111 rooms and seven rooms respectively.

“When are we going to reopen the borders? Based on what I’ve heard from the Premier, it sounds like we are going to have to wait until we get a vaccine,” Mr Hurley told The Australian. “My fear is that if the state of emergency provisions are extended at the end of the month, the border-control measures will remain and we are basically a police state.”

Mr Hurley said although he was “very supportive” of the job Premier Steven Marshall had done, part of the problem SA had was that all decisions were now being made by Mr Marshall’s transition team that “has no one from the private sector, no one who has to pay a week’s wage for their staff out of their own personal bank ­account”.

He said occupancy rates at his hotels currently stood at 20 per cent to the low 50 per cent rate, and the problem was being exacerbated by the fact pubs remained closed for service while cafes and restaurants were open.

“It’s such an irritation that for the people who are staying in our hotels, we can’t even serve them a cup of coffee on their own in dining lounges that are licensed for hundreds of people,” he said.

“The 100-odd staff who aren’t on JobKeeper are finding it really tough. When they come in to see me, they are desperate for things to start up again.”