A regional hospitality group is diving into its own pocket to offer its Dubbo workers a cash incentive to choose to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Harvest Hotels is offering a $100 allowance to the 150 casual and full-time employees of its stable of pubs, located in four inland cities.
Amid a COVID outbreak in western NSW, a vaccination blitz began at Dubbo on Saturday, with a new walk-in clinic operating until Saturday August 29.
Harvest Hotels, which acquired the Milestone at Dubbo earlier this year, announced its incentive on August 13, saying it wanted to lead by example and stop the spread of COVID-19.
"Every time regional communities go into a lockdown, hospitality venues are forced to shut, and our staff lose work," co-director Fraser Haughton said.
"We know that rolling up our sleeves for the jab is the only way out of the pandemic, so this $100 allowance is our small way of encouraging our employees who can, to get vaccinated."
The incentive will be transferred to any staff members who elect to get the jab as well as those already immunised, the company says.
Fellow director Chris Cornforth on August 18 said the offer had been "really well-received".
"The main comment has been 'we want to get vaccinated as quickly as possible', and some people are still finding that a little bit difficult to do at this stage, because of having the availability of vaccines," he said.
"We aren't forcing anyone to, and we understand that some people aren't able to or don't want to, and that won't impact their shifts or their employment at all.
"But the government has been fairly emphatic about their view that vaccinations will be our way out of lockdown, and we're following their advice.
"We want our community to feel safe, and our staff to feel safe when they're working in our pubs, or visiting our pubs."
The Milestone was last week named one of the more than 80 venues of concern at Dubbo since the outbreak was confirmed on August 10, with anyone attending it on August 11 from 10am to 11am deemed a close contact and ordered to get tested and isolate for 14 days.
Almost seven months into Australia's vaccination roll-out, the nation had surpassed the 4 million mark by August 8.
Dubbo businessman Mathew Dickerson emphasised vaccination as key.
Speaking to the Daily Liberal on August 11 in the wake of the first cases, he said to meet the outbreak challenge, look at the big picture.
"The big picture I see is really vaccination," he said.
"...That to me is the solution, that's the answer to the continual lockdowns."
The telecommunications technology business owner said he had thought about the issue last year in the first lockdown.
"And I said I don't understand how a lockdown solves a problem because we lock down society, so no one spreads a virus, and then if you open up again, the virus spreads, and then you lock down again and it's not being spread," he said.
"So it just seems like a continued yo-yo.
"The circuit breaker in all of that process is obviously vaccination, that's where we can stop the spread when we do open up society again.
"So I think that's got to be the real focus, is getting as much as possible of our community vaccinated to the point where we don't need to go into lockdowns because a virus isn't being spread throughout the community."
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter
- Follow us on Instagram
- Follow us on Google News