Greater Brisbane lockdown a ‘catastrophic kick in the guts’ for Qld businesses

Cairns Adventure Group Director Roderic Rees says Greater Brisbane’s snap lockdown is a “catastrophic kick in the guts” for tourism operators and other businesses in Queensland. “This is a huge kick in the teeth for our region,” he said. “Just days after JobKeeper ending, we were seeing some green shoots, our forward bookings were looking good, and we’ve just had the phones ringing off the hook for all the wrong reasons, just cancellation after cancellation. “Confidence at an operator level is at an all-time low up here”. Mr Rees said Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk cannot blame the federal government for the economic crisis which will be created by the lockdown and tourism operators desperately need support from the state government. “If this goes through Easter, and it’s looking likely, it’s going to be diabolical for us up here,” he said. “It’s time she puts her hand in her pocket and understands that this region is on its knees. “We’ve been holding on since Christmas until now, we’ve seen some green shoots, we’ve got our businesses ready to go and then you get this catastrophic kick in the guts and we’ve got other premiers saying don’t travel to Queensland. “We need some sort of recognition that this is kick after kick after kick economically and we’re going to need some sort of assistance from the state government".

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