Grievance Debate

Hospitality Industry

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (15:11): Once again, I rise to speak about the plight of the hospitality industry here in South Australia. Today, 150 business owners gathered to launch a campaign pleading with this government for help. This is an industry in crisis. This is an industry that was hardest hit earlier this year by the pandemic and the restrictions that followed. It has lost the greatest number of jobs of any industry in the South Australian economy. At one point, over 24,000 jobs were lost in the industry across the state. It suffered the biggest impact on its capacity to trade due to the restrictions, and it has received the least support from this government of any industry as well.

This industry is one of the most important to our economy and state. It is the crucible of entrepreneurship in our economy for South Australians, and people coming to South Australia—many of them young and in the early stages of their careers, starting new businesses, investing hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions of dollars in new premises, hiring huge numbers of staff, sourcing their produce from South Australian farmers, fishers and growers, showcasing South Australian wines, beers and spirits, rejuvenating our CBD, our suburbs and our regional centres. It is labour intensive, capital intensive, debt intensive and massively important to our economy.

These are the cafes, the restaurants, the small bars, the breweries, the distilleries, the wineries, the hotels, the pubs, the clubs that are the window through which visitors see and experience South Australia. They are proud of our state and they want our state to succeed, but they have been the hardest hit by this pandemic economically. Throughout the pandemic, though, these businesses have been willing to do whatever the government has asked of them in order to stay open and keep their businesses going.

They have closed, they have reopened, they have changed their venues in order to fall in line with the changing restrictions. They have become COVID marshals and they have willingly signed up to a QR-code regime. They have done everything right by this government, but they are on their knees. Their businesses are being killed by the current restrictions. Today, these business owners met to launch a campaign to urge the government to change.

They have asked for the current one person per four square metre rule to be taken back to the one person per two square metres rule, where they had been led to believe they would be for the second half of November and December. The one person per four square metre rule is decimating their trade. No-one can operate at 25 per cent of their capacity and survive for long.

Many of these businesses have exhausted their financial reserves, taken on extra debt, and laid off staff in order to get through to the November and December trade period. It is this pre-Christmas period when hospitality venue owners look forward to making somewhere between 25 per cent and 50 per cent of their annual profit. This year, those months have been wiped out.

The Labor opposition has supported the government and its health response throughout the pandemic. We have supported the restrictions placed on the community, but we have also called for increased support for the economy, in particular the hospitality industry. Back as early as March, the Leader of the Opposition and I stood with the proprietor of the Kings Head hotel and called on the government to immediately establish a $200 million hospitality rescue package.

We have also recognised that when South Australia has the toughest restrictions in the country, it also has the least amount of support from the government. That current situation cannot go on. The one in four restrictions being placed on the hospitality industry cannot be sustained if this government will not step in and provide immediate additional support to these businesses.

Many venue owners have made it clear they will be forced, some of them, to close in the coming days unless restrictions are eased or if more additional support is not provided. If the government insists on these restrictions continuing, this support must be forthcoming. This government cannot expect to have this industry continue as the showcase of South Australian produce, the showcase for South Australian food and wine, as the window through which visitors and tourists see South Australia, into the new year unless this additional support is provided.

The Premier and this government must step up and start meeting with these business owners, must start supporting these business owners, or else we will not have much of a hospitality industry left in this state.

Time expired.