news, latest-news, Andrew Leigh, Graham Catt, Richard Marles, business
Canberra’s federal MPs will be listening to local businesses regarding the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the delayed vaccine rollout, and the end of JobKeeper. Labor’s Andrew Leigh organised the roundtable forum with the Canberra Business Council at parliament on Tuesday to discuss the next steps for federal economic recovery support and reconstruction in Canberra. CBC’s chief executive Graham Catt said these forums dealt with one of the challenges parliamentarians faced, being how do you engage effectively with small business? “Small businesses are by their very nature, incredibly busy, focused on providing goods and services and providing value to customers,” Mr Catt said. “Putting this forum together is the is the best way that we can provide direct access so that parliamentarians can ask those questions and hear them directly from those businesses themselves. “People are in very different situations. For those businesses that are still struggling, how do we keep them in mind?” While some sectors were doing well, Mr Catt said others, like tourism and those exposed to international travel are still struggling. “In many cases, they have been struggling since like 2019 with the impact of smoke, the impact of bushfires, so we’ve tried to get together as broader range of possible of different sectors, different sizes.” After bushfires, hail, and the pandemic, the end of JobKeeper was putting more pressure on businesses, Mr Leigh noted. “It’s looking even worse now the vaccine rollout is being pushed off into the never-never,” Mr Leigh said. “Scott Morrison should be focussed on getting and keeping businesses afloat and delivering the vaccines he promised, not wasting an estimated $10-20 billion on companies with rising profits. “It’s time the government listened to what businesses need and told us what they’re going to do to keep jobs in the economy while they clean up the mess they’ve made of the vaccine roll out.” Local MPs Alicia Payne, David Smith will also attend, along with Labor’s deputy leader Richard Marles. “Canberrans have done exceptionally well in managing COVID, but they want to know what support there is for their business as part of the recovery,” Mr Marles said. “I am attending the Roundtable with three of my ACT colleagues from across the Canberra electorates today, and it proves how important federal Labor sees this issue and the imperative of getting our recovery right for the sake of all businesses.” Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
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Canberra’s federal MPs will be listening to local businesses regarding the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the delayed vaccine rollout, and the end of JobKeeper.
Labor’s Andrew Leigh organised the roundtable forum with the Canberra Business Council at parliament on Tuesday to discuss the next steps for federal economic recovery support and reconstruction in Canberra.
CBC’s chief executive Graham Catt said these forums dealt with one of the challenges parliamentarians faced, being how do you engage effectively with small business?
“Small businesses are by their very nature, incredibly busy, focused on providing goods and services and providing value to customers,” Mr Catt said.
“Putting this forum together is the is the best way that we can provide direct access so that parliamentarians can ask those questions and hear them directly from those businesses themselves.
“People are in very different situations. For those businesses that are still struggling, how do we keep them in mind?”
Canberra Business Chamber chief executive Graham Catt. Picture: Dion Georgopoulos
While some sectors were doing well, Mr Catt said others, like tourism and those exposed to international travel are still struggling.
“In many cases, they have been struggling since like 2019 with the impact of smoke, the impact of bushfires, so we’ve tried to get together as broader range of possible of different sectors, different sizes.”
After bushfires, hail, and the pandemic, the end of JobKeeper was putting more pressure on businesses, Mr Leigh noted.
“It’s looking even worse now the vaccine rollout is being pushed off into the never-never,” Mr Leigh said.
“Scott Morrison should be focussed on getting and keeping businesses afloat and delivering the vaccines he promised, not wasting an estimated $10-20 billion on companies with rising profits.
“It’s time the government listened to what businesses need and told us what they’re going to do to keep jobs in the economy while they clean up the mess they’ve made of the vaccine roll out.”
Local MPs Alicia Payne, David Smith will also attend, along with Labor’s deputy leader Richard Marles.
“Canberrans have done exceptionally well in managing COVID, but they want to know what support there is for their business as part of the recovery,” Mr Marles said.
“I am attending the Roundtable with three of my ACT colleagues from across the Canberra electorates today, and it proves how important federal Labor sees this issue and the imperative of getting our recovery right for the sake of all businesses.”
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
