I understand, there needs to be rules around the handing out of government money.
However, since writing last week about a gaping hole in the Covid-19 assistance criteria, I’ve heard from a number of suffering businesses.
For example, why is a business that employs a part-time casual worth five times as much as a family business who contracts all their work to local suppliers?
The partnership qualifies for $1000 because it doesn’t have people on payroll. Other businesses qualify for $5000. It doesn’t make any sense.
One business contacted us to say that because of Covid, they failed to meet the cut-off of $75,000 in turnover during the previous 12 months. They were just short by a few thousand dollars, but three months in lockdown last year was disastrous for them.
This year, they’re 50% down on normal trading. So no $5000 for them.
Worse still, they have a casual on payroll, which prohibits them from receiving the $1000 sole trader handout.
A less resilient business operator would have closed the doors, but they are determined to ride the storm in the hope things will soon improve.
This same business gets hit every time there’s a lockdown, yet the government refuses to help because they’re not doing well enough. Irony, injustice – call it what you like.
Surely these are the types of business who need help more than any others. It’s time for the bureaucrats to be a little flexible when it comes to assessing businesses such as these.
