CORONAVIRUS
is firstly a health pandemic that will impact many people’s lives. It is certain now that it will also affect the livelihoods of many Gold Coasters.
As a tourist capital, many of our workers rely directly and indirectly on tourism. The sudden withdrawal of Chinese and other international visitors from our market is apparent, with a downturn in business activity across the city. While only 8 per cent of visitors to the Gold Coast are international, their absence has a significant impact because typically their stays are longer and they spend more than our domestic visitors.
Destination Gold Coast is sensibly re-orienting and boosting tourism marketing to attract southerners and New Zealanders, and to encourage locals to holiday at home.
Governments at all levels are urgently reviewing pandemic plans and updating business continuity plans. Here on the Gold Coast, we need multiple strategies and decisive action to mitigate the downturn in tourists and international students.
If elected on March 28 I will apply my full energy to ensuring that our city is fully prepared to deal with the impacts of coronavirus. I put the chief executive officer on notice now that on Day 1 as your new Mayor I will ask for financial assistance options to help tourism businesses and workers who are struggling with reduced hours and lower take-home cash each week. It seems only reasonable to at least offer rates relief and to honour early payment discounts for people experiencing hardship.
As the second biggest council in Australia with a $1.7 billion annual operating budget, Gold Coast City Council has financial capacity to
help our businesses and tourism in times of need.
I will also ask the CEO to present a “working from home” policy to enable some of the 3900-plus workforce to operate effectively without coming into the council offices.
Critically, the threat of coronavirus highlights the importance of diversifying our local economy faster and wider so that it is robust to withstand low points in the tourism, international education and construction sectors.
My Better Working Opportunities plan outlines some of my key strategies to diversify and strengthen our economy.
I know there are many people in council keeping a close watch on my policy announcements. I’d be delighted if they add these to the list for an incoming mayor.
Over the next few weeks, we need to stay calm and we need to make a habit of washing our hands. Our council needs to prepare for health and economic impacts of coronavirus, and for a new mayor, which I hope will be me.
MONA HECKE, INDEPENDENT MAYORAL CANDIDATE
IT is indiscriminate. It can appear anywhere. Its effect goes beyond our health to impact our lives socially and economically. Our future depends on how we deal with and learn from it.
It’s not hard to understand the fear generated by the coronavirus. I’m in that age bracket with a couple of the health issues that places me in the danger zone. Both my wife and I still work, so locking ourselves away until a vaccination becomes available is not an option. Even if it was, the combined effect of our generation
doing so will have challenging economic consequences.
Agree with the Prime Minister’s economic plan or not, he is right when he says we will eventually come out of this. To plan for that eventuality is important for the future of our city and nation.
For want of a better term, this is a war. In any war we must know our enemy, know its weakness, know our strength, plan for the worst, hope for the best and be prepared to be flexible as the battlefield changes. And it will. I understand our individual fears, I am not immune to them. But the reality is we are all in this together so together we must all play our part in winning this war.
Information is the key. How to avoid contagion, what to do if contaminated and if you are, ensure you do not contaminate others.
Our government has its responsibilities, but so do we and we must take them seriously, ours and other lives depend on it.
We have not faced such an epidemic since the Spanish flu (1918-20) but today, we are far better equipped to handle it.
The coronavirus will likely change our society and how we prepare for similar events in ways that are yet to evolve. Our species has proven to be resilient. Trust in that is the basis for our hope for hope is our friend and despair an enemy just as potentially dangerous as the virus itself.
BOB JANSSEN, GOLD COAST
MARK Bailey, I’m over your bagging of previous and current opposition party policies.
When you talk about moving forward which is always the future I don’t disagree. But taking Palm
Beach back decades with single lane each way and no parking after the council approves and builds multilevel density houses along the highway is going to destroy the suburb.
Don’t worry about all the socalled studies that are vastly inaccurate, just ask the locals for genuine feedback. Look forward to your reply.
SCOTT KEMPTON, GOLD COAST
HAVING read recent letters regarding youth crime, I find that somewhere we are missing the point.
Firstly, there are several reasons why a young person ends up on the wrong side. One of those is lack of self-esteem caused by their upbringing and home situations plus poor educational and socioeconomic factors, not to mention peer pressure.
I feel that turning their minds around will not be done by locking them up. Types of reform schools and youth clubs do have merit. However, having myself been brought up through boarding schools from the age of eight and passing through a nautical training establishment, I feel for these young offenders. There is hope.
If instead of the State Government spending huge amounts of money on reform schools, prisons etc, let each state build and operate one sail training vessel. Not for the rich sons and daughters for outward bound-type training, which is user pay, but for the street kid offenders.
No ifs or buts but compulsory. To spend just three weeks training on seamanship and a short ocean voyage for another three to six weeks and their life will be turned around. The Danish do it so why can’t we.
CAPT PAUL MATTHEWS, PARADISE POINT