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Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick has today unveiled a new $70 million business support package targeting the tourism and hospitality industries, of which $22 million alone will relieve liquor licence fees for these sectors.
The Treasurer said there would be payroll tax deferrals, refunds or waiving for businesses that are doing it tough in these industries, applied state-wide for the entirety of the current financial year until 30 June, 2022.
“We’re also extending our $5,000 business support grants to all large tourism and hospitality businesses across Queensland,” he explained.
“The government is also setting aside $20 million for a COVID cleaning rebate. The government will pay 80 per cent of small and medium sized businesses’ cleaning costs if they are a COVID-exposed site, up to a maximum of $10,000.
“We hope that will help businesses who may become COVID exposed sites.”
He said these initiatives were about the government “flexing” in response to what COVID is doing to businesses and to the economy, and follows close consultation with business groups and peak industry bodies.
“We obviously want to help businesses get back on their feet as soon as possible, to rebound as soon as possible, and every Queenslander can play a role there when we come out of lockdown to spend – to spend particularly in your local small and family businesses,” Treasurer Dick said.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk reported there were only three new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, all linked to the Indooroopilly school cluster.
"They haven't been out in the community infectious, and they're all in home quarantine," she said.
"We've had 20,484 tests in the past 24 hours, and just received some updated figures that in Cairns we've had over 4,200 tests," she said of the Far North Queensland city, which is currently in lockdown with authorities reporting high compliance levels with the stay-at-home orders.
The testing levels equate to almost 3 per cent of the Cairns population getting tested in one day, and the Premier urged people to continue to come forward for testing if they have any symptoms.
Since yesterday's call-out for vaccine registrations and the announcement of a new mass vaccination centre in South Brisbane that will open tomorrow, there were 11,000 vaccines administered in the state in the past 24 hours.
"Yesterday we announced that we were taking registrations for people aged 16 to 59 for our mass vaccination centre, and we've had 50,000 registrations already to date," the Premier said.
Updated at 10:45am AEST on 10 August 2021.
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