STATE and Territory Governments need to act to stop landlords charging unfeasible rents or risk further economic hardship, Pharmacy Guild of Australian NSW Branch President, David Heffernan, warns.
Heffernan told Pharmacy Daily that he had been speaking with National Retail Association (NRA) CEO, Dominique Lamb, about the rental crisis facing pharmacists and other retailers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Pharmacy rents are two to three times higher than any other industry," he said.
"Further to that, part of our income comes from the [Federal] Government, and some of these high rents could be seen as gouging the taxpayer.
"Dominique from the Retail Association also agrees that a lot of her members are being gouged, and here we are in COVID where people are seeing foot traffic down by up to 90% in some shopping centres, and we've got landlords not budging.
"People are just hanging on by a thread - which is JobKeeper - and we both agree that Governments will have to intervene soon because if there's no intervention, if there's no relief there somehow coming from the landlords the Governments may have a mini-economic crisis on their hands.
"That's not saying their don't have one on their hands at the moment, but JobKeeper is just keeping people together for the time being.
"The landlords can't keep charging the rents they've been charging - it's not feasible and something's got to give."
Heffernan added that the Guild and NRA have been working together to make joint representations to Governments to tackle the rental crisis facing business.
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