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Straddie strangled: How a ‘perfect storm’ has rocked island on its busiest week

A “perfect storm” involving a housing shortage, a lack of workers and the Covid-19 pandemic mandates have bitten deep at one of the State’s most popular tourist islands on the eve of the festive season boom.

Dec 14, 2021, updated Dec 14, 2021
A lack of accommodation for workers has left some Stradbroke Island businesses unable to open over the festive season. (Photo: qld.com.au)

A lack of accommodation for workers has left some Stradbroke Island businesses unable to open over the festive season. (Photo: qld.com.au)

Added to concerns over the vaccine mandate for businesses along with uncertainty, until recently, about the State’s border reopening, some of North Stradbroke Island’s businesses, including iconic eateries, will close their doors during the busiest week of the year.

For the first time in its 16 years of operation, Fishes at the Point, will shutter during the Christmas New Year week because it can’t get staff and even if it could there is nowhere for them to live.

And at least three other food businesses on the island may also close during the peak period for the same reason.

It comes as Noosa shire, one of the richest places in Australia, is also experiencing a housing crisis. A lack of affordable homes there is also keeping out workers and forcing businesses to shrink or close.

From December 24 through to January 4, Fishes at the Point, located in the prime Point Lookout spot, will close down during what is traditionally its busiest period of the summer holiday season.

Part owner Colin Battersby says a “perfect storm” of factors has made it impossible to keep the doors open and keep dishing out fish and chips to holidaymakers on the popular island during that week.

And he says he has been contacted by several other food outlets on the island who will also need to close during the same period.

“That 10 days is the busiest 10 days of January. In 16 years this is the first time in that period we have closed down.”

The perfect storm Battersby describes involves a shortage of workers due to a shortage of accommodation which has been exacerbated by the effects of the two-year pandemic.

Owners who would normally have their homes rented out to long-term tenants have taken them out of the rental pool to stay in the dwellings themselves and to rent as holiday rentals on websites.

Closed borders, both domestically and internationally, have seen Australians flock to local holiday destinations. On the one hand great for local businesses but exacerbating accommodation shortages and making it harder for businesses to find workers in the busy times.

And the uncertainty of border closures, until now, has also hampered Battersby’s bid to find enough staff.

Battersby, who is also the Straddie Chamber of Commerce chairman, says he only has half the number of staff he needs to operate during the Christmas to New Year week. Ordinarily he would need 16-18 staff but he currently only has six staff and it is not viable. Two others are not vaccinated and so, under the new mandate, cannot work.

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“It is a perfect storm really, everything conspiring all at once,” Battersby said. “I have less than half the staff I need for that period.” This is despite advertising far and wide, as he puts it.

“It has always been tight accommodation wise but it has got much worse since Covid and people are removing their properties out of the (long-term) rental pool,” Battersby said. Instead, people are using their properties themselves and putting them on holiday websites. These were places that traditionally seasonal workers rented.”

Battersby said another trend was that since the pandemic, people had spent more time on the island. The biggest arrival day now is a Thursday and people then work from home on Friday and even Mondays.

“Two years ago people weren’t doing that. A lot of people are leaving on the Tuesday now instead of the Monday.”

Battersby said the Chamber of Commerce is working with the local council in a bid to find a resolution to the housing crisis, perhaps through rezoning to medium density usage of land.

In a Facebook post, advising of the changes, the restaurant says it is “bitterly disappointed” to be forced to close from 3pm on Christmas Eve through to 8am on January 4.

It lists three reasons for the shutdown – not enough staff and accommodation, the vaccine mandate and the fact that there are six public holidays in the 10-day period.

“The vaccine mandate was/is the final hurdle that has proved insurmountable. As a business we FULLY support our staff’s right to decide what they put into their bodies. Our little business, and our loyal, hardworking staff, are now being forced to prop up a health system in case it can’t cope,” the Fishes at the Point Facebook post says.

“6 public holidays in 10 days makes us unviable particularly with the Covid restrictions imposed on us.”

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