South Auckland business association hoping for an end to lockdown

Thursday, 20 August 2020

Business Manukau is hoping the government will announce tomorrow when Auckland will move from alert level 3 to alleviate its member's frustrations with the lockdown restrictions.

Business Manukau chairman Aaron Jones says not knowing what’s happening next is the biggest issue for many of its members.

The council-funded organisation was formed in 2007 to represent businesses in the Manukau area. Jones said many of its members own retail outlets, cafes and food outlets and a lot of them are frustrated at the latest round of restrictions.

“The issue for a lot of businesses is they just don’t know,” Jones said. “We’ve got a function in mid-September, do we still hold it? And what level are we going to be at?”

He said going into alert level 3 this time, a lot of businesses in the area were ready to adapt.

“From my observation people were more prepared this time around than they initially were for the alert level 4 lockdown,” Jones said. “And if you look at a lot of cafes, more of them are online and you can now pick up your coffee and food.

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“From the information I’m seeing from our reports, up until we went back into alert level 3 it’s been better year on year for the same period, so trading wise it’s been really good since the last lockdown.”

But he said a lot of businesses were forced to make hard decisions during alert level 4 and if they didn’t then they will be forced to now.

Stephen Grey is a partner in Chester Grey Chartered Accountants which is based in Manukau.

He’s also a member of the Business Manukau executive team and said a number of his local clients have been surprised how quickly their businesses have bounced back after the last lockdown.

“A good litmus test for me is the engineering firms and all of them are doing pretty well. They probably won’t be affected and, provided it doesn’t continue past next week, they will pull through okay.”

A new Rabobank report predicts the demand for beans will drop worldwide by over 1 million bags of coffee and cafes will lose out as people continue to brew their own at home.

However, Grey said his clients in the hospitality industry have been hit hard and the government’s wage subsidy has been what’s helped many of them survive.

On Thursday the Restaurant Association launched a nationwide petition calling on the government to assist the hospitality industry which has been devastated by the pandemic.

The petition is calling for the government to provide targeted support for the hospitality industry through a home grown version of an initiative in the UK.

“Hospitality operators continue to be impacted by alert level changes, border closures and consumer uncertainty: without focused, targeted assistance many hospitality businesses will not survive,” Restaurant Association CEO Marisa Bidois said. “A scheme similar to the UK’s is needed in New Zealand.”

Under the UK scheme the government foots the bill for 50 per cent of a meal eaten at a cafe, restaurant or pub from Monday to Wednesday until the end of August.

When asked for his thoughts on the Restaurant Association’s proposal Jones said he hadn’t heard the details of it.

“I think any support we can provide businesses affected by Covid-19 is good. But without reading the association’s report I can’t really comment.”

However, he said the main thing for him and Business Manukau’s members is getting back to some sort of normality.

“We just want to get back to business as usual,” Jones said. “But protecting people’s health still remains a top priority.”