The New South Wales Treasurer, Matt Kean, calls Federal government officials to stand with small-sized businesses struggling to survive Omicron.
Small businesses have denied claims made by the treasurer of the federal government, Josh Frydenberg, that the existence of a “war chest” of private savings means they don’t require financial support in the same way as NSW treasurer Matt Kean, increased pressure on the commonwealth to provide more funds.
On Monday, Kean intensified the criticisms of his counterpart in the federal government for not meeting the NSW government’s most recent $1bn support package to blame them for leaving small businesses behind.
“Ash Barty didn’t win the [Australian] Open saying ‘I don’t need to try in the final because I had a good semi,'” Barty told the ABC.
“You have to address each of the challenges as they come along.”
Frydenberg previously suggested that the federal emergency aid is now waning and that $245 billion in savings from households and $179 billion in business savings would help the Australian economy’s recovery.
“We will continue to provide economic support through various initiatives in place, but I do want to move away from those emergency settings,” the president said.
“We need to move back to normalized settings, so off those emergency support payments.”
However, according to the Council of Small Businesses Australia (COSBA), chief executive, Alexi Boyd, said most small-sized businesses do not have a significant reserve of cash. There was also no indication that money was flowing into household savings accounts.
“On the ground, it’s not happening,” Boyd declared.
“A majority of small companies] are struggling to make enough money, even being able to pay their employees.
“There’s the talk about lots of cash in the economy; however for small-sized businesses, they’re unable to decide what the remainder of the year will look like because they’ve not had an ordinary month to base this decision-making on.
“You only need to go down to the high street and see how many businesses are trading with limited hours because of the worker shortages.”
Kylie Clift, the owner of Sydney’s Jim Jam Music, Kylie Clift stated that she was at a “breaking point” after two years of uncertainty.
She was optimistic through the Omicron wave, but she’s trying to figure out how will get through the storm without losing staff because of severe cashflow problems.
“It will take me two to three years to recover financially and just grow those student numbers back up again,” she added.
“I’ve been running my business for 16 years … I’m having to kind of go back to what I was doing at the beginning to try to drum up business.”
Her situation is so bad that she has felt as if she’s a burden to her family and husband after having to get loans to cover the rising cost.
“I know that it’s not my fault, but at the same time, it’s tough for me to get my head around that,” she admitted.
“I feel as if I’m letting them down.”
Clift was pleased with the state government plan but added that there was more to be taken care of through the Federal government in light of the effects of Omicron during the summer.
The Australia Institute chief economist, Richard Denniss, criticized Frydenberg’s reasons for not sustaining the support payments.
“He’s outsourced fiscal stimulus to high-income Australians,” Denniss stated.
“He’s hoping that families will go out and spend the government stimulus, but lots of them are simply saving up for an overseas holiday in a year or two.”
The job saver-style, scaled-down NSW payment revealed on Sunday will help companies with a turnover of less than $50 million who have seen an increase of 40% in sales during January because of the Omicron wave. Omicron wave.
The amount will be set at just half the amount available in the Delta outbreak in the last year.
Speaking with NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet on Monday morning, Kean said he expected to hear from Frydenberg after he wrote to him advising that the state’s economy may shrink by 4percent if the number of cases increases.
“This is such a huge burden that our small and medium businesses will bear, and they need the commonwealth government’s help now more than ever,” said the minister. Stated.
“We want to ensure that small businesses in NSW, particularly those hardest hit – retailers, tourism, hospitality, restaurants, cafes – can keep trading.”
