Why?
Because NZ has a government who punishes those who are successful and reward those who are not?
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I realise it's a Labour government but all the likes of HLG did was follow the rules of what was offered to them. It might be an incompetent Finance Minister being too free and easy with our money (never I hear you say) but if the likes of HLG shouldn't have been able to get the wage subsidy or should have had to pay it back then this should have been part of the rules. The government allowing such companies to meet the rules for the subsidy and then whinging when they take it seems a very strange way to go about rule making.
I disagree. HLG were not permitted to trade during the Level 4 lockdown, and only had restricted trade during Level 3. All the while they kept their staff employed and still had to meet other costs. As a result, for that period of time revenue was decimated due to the governments call. Now we know that the decision and rules made by the government were not even legal during the first part of all this.
I am pleased that HLG continued to employ their staff and accepted the government subsidy to do that. Would you have preferred that staff be instructed to take leave without pay at best, or even laid off completely as an alternative?
HLG wages subsidy is justified as they closed down all NZ stores for almost 60 days.....
You may find the market will price in a payback scenario so could go back to $5.50ish.
Comment from Aust on re-purposed buying power - good for HLG...
“But you know I think our cautiousness around the consumer has probably been ill-placed. Remember too that Australians as a whole used to spend some $40 billion or so travelling offshore in any given year. That equates to about 12 per cent of retail sales.”
great statistics to post, thank you.