Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has confirmed that professional firms, including accountants and legal services firms, will not be permitted to work on-site from Wednesday 11:59pm, for a period of six weeks.
According to the Victorian Premier, who announced stage four restrictions on Monday, another 250,000 employees will now be forced to stay home or will be stood down as Melbourne tries to reduce the number of people travelling to work per day to curb the coronavirus.
“These are heartbreaking decisions but is simply no choice. The advice from a medical expert is that this is the only way to get these numbers under control, to drive them down low enough so that we can open up again,” said Mr Andrews.
Also among the businesses closed for on-site work are management and related consulting services; architectural, engineering and technical services; employment services; and office administrative services.
Moreover, all retail stores will be forced to shut, with some allowed only to work on-site for the purposes of fulfilling online orders with strict safety protocols in place.
“I understand this will have real and heavy consequences for a number of businesses, workers and their families. We’ll do everything we can to lighten that load,” said Mr Andrews.
He also announced that businesses in metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria that are forced to shut their doors, will now be eligible for an additional $5,000 grant, on top of the previous grant announced in early July.
“In terms of metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire, you will be aware that we are currently in the process of paying out literally thousands of $5,000 grants,” said Mr Andrews.
“I can announce today will add a further $5,000 to those grants, acknowledging that they will have been under these restrictions now for a period significantly longer than the first six weeks as foreshadowed.
“So, that will mean $10,000, and indeed for those metropolitan businesses, it will finish up being in aggregate terms first and second wave payments in the order of $20,000 together with a number of other waivers of taxes and charges, and for some businesses, many businesses, all of those really significant payroll tax refunds, we are able to return to those businesses money three quarterly payments that they had made to us prior foot to the first way.”
