From the General Manager

IAN HORNE – AHA|SA GENERAL MANAGER

Watch Ian's August Update Here: https://youtu.be/sqF54nZw_nU

We’re All in this Together….. No We’re Not. Not by a Long Shot!

Sadly, this commentary is again about COVID-19 and its negative impact on tourism and hospitality.

The handling of what is now known as the ‘Modbury’ cluster was based on a ‘go hard, go early’ strategy in managing any outbreaks.

What the ‘go hard, go early’ strategy should have done is also complete the story by undertaking to ‘get business back to business ASAP’. That hasn’t happened. On the contrary.

After the seven-day lockdown, businesses in hospitality were restored to just 25% capacity with seated consumption. On Monday 2 August, the Premier announced the further lifting of restriction to include a return to 50% BUT, still seated and with masks.

One assumes that will stay in place for at least another week or longer! Speculation in the media was that even this small relaxation may have been against the opinion of SA Health!

We’ll never know, but it’s clear that ‘going in hard and going in early’ is now an inadequate response if, as we are told, managing this pandemic is also about getting the balance between health imperatives and the economy’s health. We seem far from having that balance anywhere near right.

“...if ‘fast and early’ prevents the virus spread, an ‘as-soonas-possible’ restoration of hospitality trading capacity saves businesses, communities and jobs.”

COUNTRY SA ABANDONED

It beggars belief that the needs of regional and remote operations and their communities in SA continue to be so easily dismissed.

The seven-day lockdown and subsequent severe restrictions were all applied in their entirety to regional South Australia. Yet for many rural and regional communities, Melbourne is closer to Modbury than the Eyre Peninsula and the Far North.

No other state who imposed lockdowns, ie Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane, have applied a ‘one size fits all’ across the state…. NONE! It’s a terrible impost imposed on regional and remote South Australia.

So, the message to the Government and the Transition Committee is very clear: if ‘fast and early’ prevents the virus spread, then ‘as-soon-as-possible’ restoration of hospitality trading capacity saves businesses, communities and jobs.

Do the sensible thing and give the regional and remote businesses a break!