Victorian Government COVID-19 Response: Circuit Breaker Action – Secondary Business Support Package

On Wednesday, 21 July Victorian Minister for Minister for Industry Support and Recovery Martin Pakula announced further financial support for businesses impacted by Victoria’s extended July ‘Circuit Breaker’ lockdown.

The $282.5 million extended July Circuit Breaker Business Support Package is designed to assist more than 90,000 Victorian businesses.

The announcement contains further support for previous targeted initiatives:

• The Business Costs Assistance Program, which offers grants of $2,800 for eligible businesses in the hospitality, food wholesaling, tourism, events and selected retail industries.

• The Licensed Hospitality Venue Fund will provide businesses holding an eligible liquor licence and food certificate with a $4,200 grant per premises.

• The Impacted Public Events Support Program will deliver funding to eligible public events and public events suppliers affected by the lockdown will receive support of up to $25,000 and $10,000 respectively.

• The Live Performance Support Program will deliver funding of up to $7,000 for presenters and up to $2,000 for suppliers, has also been confirmed.

• A new round of the Sporting Clubs Grants Program will provide $2,000 grants for community sport and active recreation organisations for events that have been unable to proceed or will have to be cancelled or postponed.

Business Costs Assistance Program

The new Business Costs Assistance Program will support businesses with costs incurred as a result of the circuit breaker action.

Businesses not registered for GST and with turnovers under $75,000 are also now eligible to apply for the business support and are encouraged to also apply for federal Covid disaster payments.

Eligible businesses with an annual payroll of up to $3 million can receive a one-off grant of $2800 whether they have employees or not.

Licensed Hospitality Venue Fund – Circuit Breaker Action Payment

Eligible businesses who received a grant through the Licensed Hospitality Venue Fund will receive a further one-off payment of $4,200 to help with costs incurred as a result of the circuit breaker action.

Businesses that receive this payment will not be eligible to receive a grant from the Business Costs Assistance Program.

Registration

Businesses that have previously received the Business Cost Assistance Program and the Licenced Hospitality Venue Fund will not have to reapply and will automatically receive a payment.

Businesses can register their interest the Financial Support Programs at business.vic.gov.au so they can be notified when applications open this week. Operators eligible for the Licensed Hospitality Venue Fund payment will be contacted directly by email in coming days.

The Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions is working with 22,000 applicants to the Business Costs Assistance Program to finalise those applications where information has been missing or further detail has been requested to confirm eligibility.

The new package builds on almost $7 billion in direct economic support from the Victorian Government to help businesses get through the pandemic, including five previous rounds of the Business Support Fund.

Commonwealth Income Support

Workers affected by the public health restrictions will be eligible for income support during the July

2021 ‘Circuit Breaker’ Lockdown.

• Workers who have lost more than 20 hours per week can receive $600 per week.
• Workers who have lost between 8 and 20 hours of work per week can receive $375 per week.

There is no liquid assets test applied to receive these payments.

The Federal Government will fund payments for those Victorians who work or live in a COVID-19 Hotspot declared by the Commonwealth – that includes Greater Melbourne, Moorabool Shire, the City of Greater Geelong, Borough of Queenscliffe and the Surf Coast Shire.

The Victorian Government will fund payments for Victorians who live outside of these areas but are still subject to the lockdown.

All applications can be made through the Services Australia here.

These payments will reoccur weekly for the duration of the lockdown. Recipients will no longer be required to apply for payments each week.

Further Information

For more information, contact Hawker Britton Victorian Directors, JP Blandthorn at [email protected] and Emma Webster at [email protected], or Policy and Business Analysts, Raphael Mengem at [email protected] and Millie Boag at [email protected].

Further Hawker Britton Occasional Papers on the activities of the Victorian Government are available here.

For further coverage of Labor Government Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic see Hawker Britton Briefs here.

For further coverage of Liberal Government Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic see Barton Deakin Briefs here.