The green smoothie index: nowhere hit harder than JobKeeper capital Byron Bay

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More than 60 per cent of businesses in Byron are now relying on JobKeeper to stay afloat - more than any other local government area.

In Byron Bay, sales of a $9.30 large green G-Force smoothie reveal how the COVID-19 wave has dumped on the NSW tourist town.

Those students and backpackers who had remained headed north when the Queensland border re-opened earlier this month. With nearly all of Byron's economy tied to tourism, hospitality and the creative arts, Byron mayor Simon Richardson said the pandemic has delivered a "triple whammy".Taylor Fry's map shows that Byron Bay's businesses are in the red, with 60 per cent receiving JobKeeper payments, the most in the country.Hotel bookings looked healthy for summer, but if the town doesn't get that "fattening" he feared it could "lurch into real danger".

Cr Richardson said the JobKeeper figures reflected what happened when an economy was beholden to one sector, and the council had been been attempting to diversify the economy so it wasn't as dependent on tourism and hospitality. When the tourism dried up, it affected the rest of the region with "all the pork and tomatoes, macadamia and the mueslis which aren't being bought".

Rents are also high, and Cr Richardson said he has seen more people couch surfing after losing their jobs. A shopkeeper said his landlord wanted to restore rents to pre-COVID levels after providing discounts earlier: "In this time, we can't afford the full rent for the premises ... because there are 60 to 40 per cent fewer tourists."

 

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Who wants to be stuck in NSW in the cold weather. ?We headed to beautiful warm QLD .

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