"The Australian Industry Group participated in today's meeting chaired by Attorney-General Christian Porter to discuss the challenges facing the community from the Novel Coronavirus. It was a productive discussion and a useful forum for Government, industry and union representatives to discuss the many challenges that the community, businesses and employees are facing. It is important that the dialogue continues over the months ahead," Innes Willox, the Chief Executive of national employer association Ai Group, said today.
"Businesses and their employees are typically working together to face the challenges in a cooperative way. For example, many businesses have expanded their working-from-home arrangements. There is no 'one size fits all' approach of course. Businesses of different sizes and in different industries are impacted in a variety of ways, and have different capacities to offer special assistance to their employees.
"Clearly businesses will do what they reasonably can to support their workforces, suppliers and customers through the period ahead but inevitably the longer this situation goes, the more stresses everyone concerned will be under.
"Ai Group is looking forward to the Government's announcement of its stimulus measures. COVID-19 has arrived at a time when the economic outlook has been deteriorating, business investment has disappointed and productivity growth has stalled and it is critical that measures to boost business investment should feature prominently in the Government's package," Mr Willox said.
Media enquiries: Tony Melville – 0419 190 347
