Australia’s restaurant, café and catering sector has been left dumfounded after the 2022-23 Budget, stating that the big-ticket announcements by the Federal Government are woefully inadequate in dealing with the current crisis that the industry faces.

R&CA CEO Wes Lambert said that measures announced as part of the 2022-23 Budget would do relatively little to alleviate any of the pressures that the industry was feeling including staff-shortages, skills and rising cost of goods.

“The Budget is long on the short and short on the long,” he said.

“With no increase to the migration cap, a lousy extension of the Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements (BAC) by only three months and no funds made available to make visa application processing faster, Australian hospitality has only one question: ‘Have our pleas fallen on deaf ears?’

“The past two years have been incredibly tough on Australia’s hospitality sector. With lockdowns, skills shortages and international border closures, we have seen many businesses experience probably the hardest period in living memory”.

“With over 95,000 hospitality job ads online, the sector is increasingly finding it difficult to fill these positions due to both a lack of migrant workers entering the country and a lack of Australians taking up a career in hospitality.”

“It’s all good and well funding these programs, but without the people to take up these courses, it’s utterly meaningless. This has been the prevailing trend over the past few years”.

Mr Lambert expressed concern at Australia’s long-term business outlook noting that a decline in business investment painted a picture of a nation needing reform to boost competition with the rest of the world.

“Temporary injections into the hip-pocket of the average Australian will help to boost spending in the short-term but providing competitive jobs with great wages determined by market-forces will be the necessary antidote to our shortfall in long-term economic growth”.

“The 2022-23 Budget fails to help Australian business move in the right direction”.

“If this is the best they’ve got, it’s simply not good enough”.