EDITORIAL PUBLISHER SCOTT FILBY
ACTING EDITOR IAN MOORE
DOING THE RIGHT THING BY BUSINESS Prime Minister Scott Morrison has done the right thing by business and manufacturing with his $1.5 billion assistance package. It provides support when it is most needed as well as a financial incentive for businesses to invest in plant and create the jobs that have been lost through COVID-19 closures, particularly in Victoria. When taken in conjunction with the budget and the extension of JobKeeper, it provides a strategy to encourage consumer spending while providing capital for businesses to expand. The aim of the initiative is to make manufacturing the engine room of the economic revival, post COVID. As restrictions ease, one can almost feel the eagerness of manufacturers to get on with the job, with companies now facing the end of the year with renewed optimism.
READY TO FIGHT BACK There are still discussions between Treasury and the Business Council of Australia in the hope of expanding the instant write-off provision to include some multinationals that currently are excluded.
It is a long way back from the COVID recession, more so in Victoria than the rest of Australia because of the severity and length of the lockdowns ordered by Premier Daniel Andrews.
The budget restricted the write-off for new investment between now and June 2022 to companies with an “aggregate” turnover of $5 billion or less.
Mr Andrews did not lift the restrictions on retail and hospitality businesses as industry groups had hoped in October and intends to review this again in November.
The addition of “aggregate” means the overseas earnings of multinational companies is counted in the $5 billion cap. This results in the exclusion of around 100 major companies. The BCA sees the exclusion of such companies as counter-productive, because their scale allows them to make major investments.
There has been a torrent of criticism over the decision, particularly when the devastating second wave of COVID-19 was triggered by the state government’s inexplicable decision to ignore the recommendations of national cabinet and hire ill-trained security guards to manage hotel quarantine.
Let’s hope the talks can resolve it, because it would go a long way to making a good budget even better.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison estimates that Victoria is losing, on average, 1000 jobs each day of the
lockdown, which means there is every reason to lift the restrictions as soon as possible – even more so considering Victoria’s rate of new infections has been running lower than NSW. In the September employment figures, the national jobless rate was pushed up from 6.8 per cent to 6.9 per cent – with the gain of 6000 jobs in the other states swapped by the 36,500 jobs lost in Victoria. With the importance of manufacturing and the role of Victorian business in the recovery, I will be taking up a new position as Industry Update’s Victorian correspondent to bring you stories of individual companies and how they are fighting back. See you then.
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INDUSTRYUPDATE.COM.AU
30/08/2011 5:25:30 PM
OCTOBER 2020
