The Australian federal government has announced an AUD$17.5bn stimulus package to help support the economy during the coronavirus pandemic.
Among the measures included in the package are:
- Household stimulus payments for around 6.5m lower income Australians, receiving a one-off $750 payment
- Tax free-cashflow boosts of $25,000 for eligible small and medium sized businesses with turnover of less than $50m.
- $700 million to increase the instant asset write off threshold from $30,000 to $150,000 and expand access to include businesses with aggregated annual turnover of less than $500 million (up from $50 million)
- Incentives aimed at driving investment in Australia, including giving businesses with turnover of less than $500m the ability to deduct an additional 50% of the asset cost in the year of purchase
The full details of the package can be found here.
The package comes during a nosedive in international visitors to Australia, started by the bushfires in January and continuing through the coronavirus.
Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC) Managing Director Peter Shelley said: “Our industry has borne the brunt of two exceptional setbacks and the international visitor numbers for January, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), only provide a glimpse of where our industry is falling from.
“With yesterday’s announcement of isolation measures for all new arrivals to Australia, our inbound tourism industry has effectively been shut down.
“Australia’s tourism industry is falling from a great high - a high that has been a big part of our economic success over the past 10 years.
“We know the government is aware of our predicament and that tourism is not alone in the crisis but what we need to do is ensure the businesses at the heart of our industry can survive the next few months and help Australia get back on its feet.”
