COVID-19 Rental Affordability

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:34): I rise to speak today about the despair and hopelessness of small business owners in the Adelaide CBD who are experiencing a massive downturn in trade as restrictions keep customers away, while their rents remain at pre-COVID levels. Many of these businesses have been forced to close because of the imbalance in earnings and outgoings and it has reached the point where something needs to be done before we lose more of our city traders.

I received an email recently from one of these struggling traders and it really hit home. Massimo Sassi, who runs a small corner shoe repair shop on Grenfell Street, wrote that he has endured the toughest time in almost 50 years of trading as he struggles against all the odds to keep his business open.

One of those genuine hardworking characters of our city, Massimo is desperate for some support after receiving a notice of eviction from his landlord, who is still charging pre-COVID rents. This came while he and the tenants of other small businesses have been denied customers because of lockdowns and a major change in the way we work. Customers who once worked in the city simply do not work there now, and it is going to take some time before trade returns.

We have all been asked to share the load in these difficult times that are nowhere near over. People's working hours have been cut, so have their wages, and many city traders have struggled to make even a greatly reduced living, or they are simply going to close altogether. Yet landlords continue to charge the same rents they were charging before the pandemic dramatically reduced city trade.

Massimo says that while he has negotiated recessions and downturns before, the COVID restrictions have created an impact like he has never seen since the store opened in 1974. He says that he and other mum and dad businesses, as he describes them, will be lost forever if they do not get some support through these tough times. We cannot let that happen. Small businesses are vital to the spirit and culture of the city. If we lose them, we will lose the colour, flavour and character that cannot be replicated by major chains alone.

Many current leases were signed before the pandemic hit, and paying pre-COVID rents is just not possible. Those stuck in long leases will simply not survive their terms of lease. We only need to take a walk down Grenfell Street, North Terrace and King William Street to see that offices are closing at an alarming rate. There is a new normal in the CBD and rents need to fall in line. Various reports suggest that trading is falling by between 25 and 50 per cent for most small businesses, and rents need to fall in line with this new normal.

This needs to happen to keep tenants above the poverty line so they continue trading. The alternative is watching the CBD become a ghost town. Landlords are issuing eviction notices as I speak. We need to listen to people like Massimo who are on the ground and can see what is happening. He has spent 47 years in that small business. He works with his wife and his son. His son was going to take over the business when Massimo retires, but his son is now reassessing his future. He fears that these eviction notices and the lack of financial relief will drive traders into bankruptcy, cause severe mental health issues and could even lead to suicides.

We have a responsibility to the traders who have kept the Adelaide CBD a vibrant place to work and shop and to the city itself to make sure we do not lose these traders forever. If you have ever dropped into Massimo's wonderful little corner store to get shoes repaired, keys cut or just for a shop and a chat, you will understand why retaining this personal service is so vital.

Landlords, of course, will argue that they have their costs as well. In some cases, that is true, although at the moment most of them are not sharing the cost of this pandemic. That is being met full on by the traders, who are continuing to pay pre-COVID rents, at least until they cannot pay any longer and shut up shop.

I call upon this parliament to take a bipartisan approach to the dire situation and provide some relief for our city traders. I ask that we subsidise their rents until the time comes when their trade returns to something like it was a couple of years ago, or at least until they can renegotiate new leases with their landlords, who have to take some of the load.

Real people who work hard, providing quality personal service, depend on it, and so does the Adelaide city centre, which would be a poorer place without them. This government must step up to the plate, and I call upon the Treasurer to provide rent relief and introduce measures that will ensure that landlords reduce rents to those small businesses that can show that they have had a downturn in income during this pandemic.