Struggling businesses welcome Covid-19 financial relief

In Sydney’s southwest, small businesses have been shattered by lockdown restrictions, with shop owners welcoming the government’s new support package.

Allen Aydem, front, and Gulden Yildirim tend to a trickle of customers at Tommy’s Kebabs, Smithfield, in Sydney’s west on Tuesday. Picture: Jane Dempster

In Sydney’s southwest, at the epicentre of the state’s Covid-19 outbreak, small businesses left shattered by lockdown restrictions and spiralling consumer confidence have welcomed the financial rescue package announced on Tuesday.

At Smithfield’s iconic Tommy’s Kebabs, the afternoon rush, which normally sees queues stretching out onto the street, has been reduced to a trickle, with the Greater Sydney lockdown causing revenue to plunge by more than 50 per cent.

“Locally, our store is very well-known and usually buzzing throughout the week,” said owner Aydin Sevnic, who has run the popular store with wife Halime for more than 30 years. “On an average week we’d go through more than a tonne of meat and have hundreds of mouths to feed daily.”

But Mr and Mrs Sevnic say the current lockdown has changed everything. “This lockdown is very different from last March. Our customers aren’t ordering food and coming into the store like last time.”

And, while UberEats provided a brief window of reprieve for business in 2020, Mr Sevnic said nothing could prepare them for 2021.

But on Tuesday, the federal and NSW governments finalised a new relief package, announcing businesses with a turnover of between $30,000 and $75,000 — which saw their turnover decline by 30 per cent — would receive a payment of $1500 per fortnight, starting from week one of the lockdown period.

Businesses across the state will be offered up to $10,000, while allowing employees who have lost more than 20 hours’ work to access up to $600 a week after the fourth week of lockdown. Additionally, employees who lose between eight and 20 hours of work per week will be eligible to access up to $375.

Mr Sevnic said any support would help. “We had to cut two staff last year and we are going to need all the help we can get to keep everyone on board this time round,” Mr Sevnic said. “More money like this means we can pay wages and not reduce shifts, which would be great.”

Tommy’s Kebabs, which usually employs 12 staff through the week, has been forced to put seven workers on casual hours, and cut business by more than three hours a day.

“In the afternoons and evenings when it is heaving, we had five or six staff on full-time, working 8.30am until 2am. Now we have three or four staff on during those times and cut the hours because it’s just dead,” Mr Sevnic said. “We’ll need to discuss how the package will help us and how we can apply, but that kind of cash injection could really help turn things around and help keep everyone on.”

As part of the new package, the government also announced an eviction moratorium for commercial and retail tenants throughout the lockdown, with an additional rebate afforded to landlords who provide rent reductions during the period.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the statewide support package was designed to keep the NSW economy afloat as the Delta variant continues to wreak havoc among businesses and consumer confidence. “You don’t have to have lost your job, you don’t have to leave your employer … It doesn’t matter who your employer is, if you have lost hours, you can access that payment right now,” he said.

For Tommy’s Kebabs, “the cash couldn’t come soon enough”.