20 October 2021
Jane Howlett, Minister for Small Business
The Tasmanian Liberal Government understands that the recent three-day lockdown has impacted many Tasmanians and Tasmanian businesses financially.
As the Minister for Small Business and a former business owner myself, I am very pleased that today the Tasmanian Liberal Government has announced a new Southern Tasmania Lockdown Business Support Program to assist businesses in southern Tasmania which were directly impacted by the lockdown direction issued on 15 October 2021.
The grant program is available to eligible businesses who are from the affected Local Government Areas of Brighton, Central Highlands, Clarence City, Derwent Valley, Glamorgan-Spring Bay, Glenorchy, Hobart City, Huon Valley, Sorell, Southern Midlands, Tasman, and Kingborough.
The package will include:
- A $1000 payment to any eligible business forced to close for the duration of the southern lockdown;
- A $750 payment to any eligible business open, but with restrictions, due to the southern lockdown; and
- An additional payment of up to $10,000 to businesses for the loss of perishable goods that had to be discarded as a direct result of the lockdown order.
Businesses will need to provide evidence of the loss to be eligible for this assistance.
There is no greater supporter of Tasmanian businesses than our Government, and this additional support follows the unprecedented $130 million package provided to Tasmanian businesses during the height of the pandemic last year.
Guidelines for the new program are now available on the Business Tasmania website, and applications will open at 2pm on Thursday, 21 October 2021.
The new Southern Tasmania Lockdown Business Support Program is in addition to the significant support already provided throughout the pandemic, including most recently the Supercharged Micro and Small Business Border Closure Grant program.
I’m pleased to say that as of yesterday (19 Oct) more than $37 million of support has been distributed to more than 2,600 Tasmanian businesses through the first round of our $50 million Supercharged Micro and Small Business Border Closure Grant program.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the hard working team at Business Tasmania who worked tirelessly over the weekend to support businesses through the lockdown. As at 6pm on Monday, 18 October the Business Tasmania team had taken almost 500 calls through the 1800 440 026 number and more than 60,036 businesses had registered their impact of the shutdown on the Business Tasmania website.
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