Hervey bay eateries struggle for survival as pandemic laws extend to October
Hervey Bay hospitality business owners are concerned about the six-month extension of Covid mandates, fearing they may not be able to keep their businesses past the Easter break.
It has been confirmed that restrictions remain in place and venue staff will need to continue to police a customer’s vaccination status until at least October.
Hervey Bay eatery owners, who together with Fraser Coast Councillor David Lee, have expressed their concerns and are calling on the Queensland Government to reconsider the rules ahead of the Easter weekend.
According to Councillor Lee, some businesses were reporting up to a 40 per cent decline in operative revenue. With a 91 per cent vaccination rate across Queensland, they have called on the state leaders to relax the mandates ahead of the long weekend.
Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard extended the restrictions until 31 October.
The move put the LNP, which had mooted a May 31 end date, on the attack.
Nearby Bundaberg Burnett MP Stephen Bennett launched a scathing attack on his Labor counterpart citing the struggles small business owners were facing int heir struggle to survive.
The Courier Mail reported Health Minister Yvette D’Ath had hit out at the LNP’s moves to end the legislation in May instead of October.
“To do so would be to ignore the fact that national cabinet, the national government, has recognised that this (the pandemic) will go beyond May,” she said.
“While this virus remains unpredictable, one thing remains constant: the opposition’s unrelenting willingness to criticise and undermine the public health framework that has served Queensland so well since the outset of the pandemic,” she said.
Irit Jackson, 4th April 2022
