Struggling Hawkesbury businesses say not enough being done by Feds or Council to help them survive

Liberal MP Stuart Robert, Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business, visited the Hawkesbury today as a guest of the Liberal candidate for Macquarie and said it was, “so great to see this community bounce back from the floods”, which maybe suggests he just doesn’t get out enough, or at least has not been properly informed.

Jan Clifton, MP Susan Templeman, Kathy Succar and Rachel Mountford

We say that because in the last two weeks we’ve been talking to many local entrepreneurs and business owners who work hard but who have been so hard hit by fire, several floods, and two blasts of COVID in the past two years they are desperately trying to save their businesses as incomes drop dramatically.

Yes, some are doing well – Minister Robert visited Lollies ‘N’ Stuff in Windsor, which apparently is booming thanks to the Hawkesbury’s sweet tooth – but others are not doing so well, not least, say local businesses, because Hawkesbury businesses have been denied a $10,000 helping hand from the Morrison government extended to other areas hard hit by floods.

As one businesswoman told us, “what about giving us a blood transfusion so we can continue to be the heartbeat of the nation?”

In flood-smashed Lismore, for example – both Lismore and Hawkesbury were given Disaster status by the Federal government during the March floods – if your business suffered a 40% drop in revenue you can receive $10,000 in Federal government assistance, but the Hawkesbury has been denied that level of support.

Jan Clifton who owns Figgy Boutique on Richmond’s Windsor Street says she has seen a 70% decline in revenue since bushfires, floods and COVID ravaged the Hawkesbury.

“It has been dead on the streets,” says Ms Clifton. “There’s just been no-one around, and it’s not just our business that has been affected.”

“If you meet the criteria [a 40% drop in revenue] it shouldn’t matter where you are geographically, because you have suffered the same effect,” says Macquarie Labor MP Susan Templeman.

“There is a real inequity and it makes you think about the colour-coded spreadsheets and who gets what.

“We are all Australians, we should all have the same set of guidelines around assistance, whether we are individuals or businesses,” says the MP.

Some of the businesses we spoke to this last week say they are even thinking of leaving the Hawkesbury because they feel there is also so little support from Hawkesbury Council.

Kathy Succar who owns Zoe and Quinn Home Lifestyle in Richmond and who is determined to stay and make it work, told the Post that when you look at what other Councils do Hawkesbury falls short.

“Other councils, every Friday night they have stalls and food, but if you go on the Hawkesbury [council] website all they talk about is the history, there is zero business directory, and they are doing zero to encourage tourism.

“This year on Saturdays it seems dead, they are not pushing tourists through the area, they are not doing anything to make the main street attractive, I know they are doing something [the Liveability Program] but it is taking years.”

Rachel Mountford who owns Total Aesthetics and Dermedics Australasia, based in Hobartville, told us, “We have a heart for the community.

“The core of our nation has been small business, the Aussie battler. What I’ve struggled with, and I don’t talk politics, but the government says they are all for the community and small business and for the heart of the nation.

“Well, what about giving us a blood transfusion so we can continue to be the heartbeat of the nation?”

Bianca Tolhurst who owns the well known Juan and Me Boutique in Richmond says she agrees.

“How much more can a community take? I’m normally that someone who continues to run with the punches but I think I’m pretty much done.”

She says she is looking at restructuring her business to help it survive.

Ms Mountford adds, “we are getting unprecedented times and when it comes to our community of sole traders if we didn’t have any guts and tenacity and didn’t have resilience we wouldn’t be doing what we do, so we don’t rely on handouts. I don’t have grandiose expectations.

“These events we’ve all faced, they’re something you’d ordinarily think okay we can get another 40 or 50 years before another, and we haven’t. We’ve had 1 in 100 fires, then 1 in 100 floods, and then we’ve been locked down for three months, and then I’ve thought we can do this – I think I can, l think I can, and then you get knocked down again.

“It’s not like we are looking for handouts or that knight on the white shiny horse, but we need a little bit of acknowledgement that, you guys have been smashed.”

If you are already a Hawkesbury Post supporter, thank you! Our site is free, relying on our supporters to operate. Independent journalism is more important than ever, please consider contributing.

Click here to see how

Don’t pay so you can read it. Pay so everybody can read it!