Small businesses and unions have condemned as inadequate Scott Morrison’s response to a burgeoning staffing crisis caused by the Omicron wave.
The crisis has pushed supply chains to breaking point, emptied supermarket shelves and forced some retailers and hospitality operators to close.
Under new rules announced by the prime minister after a national cabinet meeting on Thursday, workers in a swathe of industries including food distribution and transport will be allowed to go straight back to work after recording a negative rapid antigen test.
However, Morrison again rebuffed calls from small businesses and unions for free rapid antigen tests in the workplace, and industries including general retail and hospitality have been excluded from the relaxed regime.
He also did not respond to calls from retail and hospitality businesses, which are not included in the new testing regime, for cash subsidies to staunch the flow of red ink from balance sheets.
Alexi Boyd, the chief executive of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, said the new rules excluded many industries, amounting to hundreds of thousands of workers, that needed relief from isolation requirements.
“What we’ve been saying in the last few days is that every business and every small business is essential right now,” Boyd, who joined the consultations with governments in recent days, said.
It was frustrating for the government “to turn around and say, at this stage, for small that are going through so much, they are not essential”.
According to Boyd, many of those excluded actually make up the supply chain to industries that were included in the eased conditions over isolation.
“It’s another set of circumstances that small businesses need to navigate and understand and unpack.
“What we need now is Safe Work Australia to make it abundantly clear what the consequences are for employers, and making sure that what they do meets the requirements of Safe Work.”
Morrison said the decision a fortnight ago to narrow the definition of close contact was “already having a positive impact” on supermarket distribution systems, but “we need to go further”.
In a sign the crisis may yet deepen, supermarket chain Woolworths joined its main rival, Coles, in re-imposing purchase limits on some products – a move last taken during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
After enjoying a few months of pre-pandemic style “business as usual” following last year’s lockdowns, many Australian companies have been crippled because staff are off work while waiting for a Covid test, isolating or sick.
At the same time, consumer confidence has plummeted and customer numbers at retail, hospitality and tourism businesses have fallen as people stay home in a bid to avoid the highly contagious Omicron variant.
Morrison said up to 10% of the Australian workforce was off at any one time. However, some industries estimate rates that are much higher, at up to 50% in some businesses.
Close contacts, which were redefined just before the new year to include only members of the same household as a Covid case, are required to isolate for seven days.
Under the new rules, which the prime minister said come into force “as soon as possible”, workers in the transport, freight, logistics, emergency services, energy, water, waste management, food, beverage, telecommunications, data, broadcasting, media, education and childcare industries will be allowed to return to work immediately after a negative rapid test.
Morrison said he met with big businesses this week and “they have been sourcing the rapid antigen tests for some period of time going back many months … going back to August of last year.”
However, small business has consistently said the tests are expensive and difficult to obtain. In October, industries and unions jointly called on the government to buy them in bulk and hand them out for free so that workers could be tested.
State and federal governments currently have about 200m rapid tests on order but many of them are not expected to arrive before the end of the month. On Wednesday, Morrison said he would prioritise “healthcare and aged care workers, and then those who are symptomatic and close contacts” when handing them out.
From 24 January, concession card holders will also be able to get 10 rapid tests over three months, with a maximum of five a month, from pharmacies under a program jointly funded by the commonwealth and the states.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has called an emergency meeting of unions for this coming Monday after Morrison failed to respond to a letter sent by the council’s secretary, Sally McManus, at the beginning of the week.
It said allowing more workers back to work after a negative rapid test was not a solution to the crisis because it increased the risk of transmission.
“The federal government’s plan to open up, if there is one, has clearly failed our health systems, our economy and the essential national supply chains,” McManus said.
She said free rapid tests were a “key measure” needed to keep workers and the community safe.
“Essential workers are being forced to put themselves in harm’s way to keep food on the shelves, medicines in stock, the lights and water on and keep this country open for business.”
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, representing many mid-sized firms, offered qualified support for the eased close contact rules but said more needed to be done.
“Until supply constraints on rapid antigen tests are resolved, many employees caught up in isolation requirements will still be unable to return to work,” ACCI’s chief executive, Andrew McKellar, said.
“It’s disappointing that national cabinet did not extend the changes to other sectors,” he said.
“Thousands of businesses around the country have not been able to open or trade at full capacity since the onset of Omicron. It is likely we will need to revisit the scope of these measures over coming weeks.”
He also expressed frustration over the government’s failure to procure the tests when they were needed.
“We have been calling for rapid antigen tests to be freely and widely available for Australians, small business and other industry settings since September last year.”