Shadow Treasurer Dr Steve Thomas said today that the latest lockdown of residents in Perth and Peel this week has highlighted the need for the Government to speed up and make fairer its business compensation packages for COVID lockdowns.
“Once again businesses are prevented from opening throughout the Perth and Peel regions, and once again travel to the regions is blocked, and we still have a backlog of claims from previous lockdowns like the ANZAC day weekend,” Dr Thomas said.
“The Government needs to make the system far more user friendly and far more efficient. How many businesses have been paid their $2000 from two months ago?
“In fact, how many businesses have even been notified that their applications from April have been successful.”
Dr Thomas said that he was assuming that regional businesses would once again miss out on any compensation package, despite the cancelled bookings and food going to waste as customers are unable to leave Perth.
“We need a standard set of rules for compensation for these lockdowns, not the haphazard process the McGowan Government appears happy to put business through.
“The Government is sitting on a multi-billion dollar budget windfall to make itself look good when businesses are suffering. If the Government thinks that the lockdowns are necessary on health grounds, they have the cash capacity to support those businesses that are impacted.
“Making financial support for businesses too hard to access or too late to support them is simply not good enough.”
