$500m-plus paid in Covid support but some miss out

The Government’s Covid-19 support payment scheme has paid out more than $500 million to 76,000 businesses to help them through the Omicron outbreak.

Applications opened on February 28 for the scheme, which offers businesses $4000 plus $400 per full-time employee, capped at $24,000.

Just released figures show $513,384,980 has been paid to 76,030 businesses, with construction the top sector, making up 14 per cent of successful applications.

Companies make up 47,308 of all applications and individuals make up 26,077, with societies, clubs, trusts and ‘‘other’’ making up the balance.

Businesses need to show a drop of 40 per cent or more in revenue in a seven-day period after February 16, compared with either January 5 to February 15 this year, or the same time last year when the whole country was at alert level 1.

Businesses wanting to use the 2021 time period needed to wait until mid-March to apply.

The payment is available on a fortnightly basis for six weeks, meaning three payments in total, each of which needs to be applied for separately.

Tourism Export Council of New Zealand chief executive Lynda Keene said many tourism businesses which had an international focus were not eligible for the payment because they could not demonstrate a 40 per cent loss in 2022 against 2021, because in 2021 they were trading at zero.

The council had 300 members, of which 62 were inbound tour operators who traditionally brought in more than 55 per cent of international visitors.

‘‘None of the inbound tour operators meet the criteria because in February 2021 they had zero revenue,’’ Keene said.

Most other members had about a 60 per cent or higher reliance on international visitors, meaning their earnings were at 20-30 per cent of what they had at the same time as 2020. She hoped the Government would provide targeted support for the industry that would help its members stay afloat until traditional long-haul markets returned in any decent numbers in October.

‘‘It is needed to ensure the quality world-class visitor offering, infrastructure and service is still around for when visitors start to return.’’