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Katie Woolf spoke with Hospitality NT CEO Alex Bruce · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So we're gonna head on over and catch up with
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Alex Spruce right now from hospitality into Good morning to you, Alex,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Good morning to you apparently so mate, I'm not sure
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: what's going on. We've all lost the plot a little
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: bit today, Alex. I'm trying trying my best to regain.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Composion yesterday, and.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: I reckon it might be now. Alex.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: We know that while we may be feeling a bit
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: chaotic yesterday due to that power outage well in Alice Spring.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: She'd have to say that by the sounds of it
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: from Robin Lamley earlier this morning, she says, it's been
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: an absolute mauzle when you talk about the way in
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: which the evacuees or they're not evacuees, but the way
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: in which the people who were traveling from Alice Springs,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: South Australia to Alice Springs have been dealt with.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: There has been.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Discussion, obviously from the Health Minister saying that there was
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: some hotels that reneged on the agreement that they would
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: take some of those some of those people that needed
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: to go into quarantine.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: From your perspective, has that been the case?
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Simply put, I'd say no, I don't think that's a
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: fair representation. I've spent the last twenty four hours talking
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: with the operators down in Alice to try and get
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: a sense of what went wrong and where and why
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: and who and in all of these situations, you know,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: very quickly, Unfortunately it can descend into don't look at me,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: point finger over there in some of the agency lands.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: But anyway, I'd just cut through all of that and
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: say I spoke to the Police Commissioner last night and
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: the Health Minister's office. There is broad support to sit
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: down and make sure we do do better going forward.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: We don't think that there were a conversations that we
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: had and then literally tumbleweeds for the last three months
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: until forty eight hours ago. Okay, we're ready to go.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Can we go now please? That's probably not the best
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: way to deal with any surge capacity requirements were this
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: event to happen again. So cop it on the chin. Collectively,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: we'll look to work together with the government as we
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: have and the language that we found we called out
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: yesterday if we weren't particularly comfortable with what we do
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: think is more of an aberration than what the strong
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: level of engagement within getting from health and police has
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: been up until.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Now well, and I would imagine Alex that you know,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: for some of these businesses, they may have been concerned
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: about taking you know, some of these territorians and having
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: them quarantine there if they weren't as prepared as they'd
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: like to be.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: My understanding there was no contracts signed that said, Okay,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: this will be the way the government notifies when they're
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: going to come into your venue. This is what the
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: venue is expected to achieve. This is then your plans
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: for what the staffing would look like, because bearing in mind,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: you don't want the same housekeeper trolley going from your
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: normal guest areas to the COVID quarantining areas and back again.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: This is the ppe that will be on site for
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: all of that. So my understanding, as far as I've
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: been able to tease it out, is that there were
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: conversations and there may even have been some email chains
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: floating around, particularly the day that you know, the facility
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: down there and the surge capacity in the town that
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: was properly stood up was overrun that we don't think
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: of the fair assessment to say that there were deals
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: for NEGGED when ultimately the decisions in those businesses, to
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: protect their other guests, to protect their staff, those staff, family,
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: the community of Alice Springs. You know, we want to
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: do it well, we want to do it right. We
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: all learned the lesson again from Adelaide. Unfortunately, if this
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: goes wrong, it can have massive costs and impediments on
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: the whole unity. So let's make sure we've got the
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: protocols where we need them to be.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was actually what I thought when i'd sort
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: of you know, when I had heard about it yesterday,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: and the first I heard was with the minister Kate Warden.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: Take a listen to what she'd said to us yesterday
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: on air.
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: The Aurora is one of the other locations and Ross Street,
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: they were both in our contingency plans. I know that
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: there were two others, Katie, that had agreed but at
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: the last moment changed their minds, which was very disappointing.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: So I guess, you know, for me, when I heard that,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: I thought to myself, full unless you kind of had it.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: And I know we're talking COVID here, so it's really
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: hard for people to get advanced notice as to whether
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: they're going to need to house people in their facilities.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: But you know, for me, I thought about it and
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: thought if I was a business who was concerned that
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: I maybe wasn't as prepared as I'd like to be,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: my immediate reaction would be making sure that my staff
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: was safe and that anybody else who was staying in
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: my facility was safe as well.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: That's it want to one of the properties that is
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: being alluded to, But we're not really keen on participating
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: in any scapegoating or name or shame ceremony. My understanding
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: is at time of full lockdown was the last time
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: they had a discussion, and in the event, if we
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: needed more capacity, could we come talk to you. That
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: in no way is an ironclad agreement, But leaving that aside,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: I would have thought you'd want protocols there are a
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: lot more robust than that, so that health does get
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: the certainty it needs about what capacity is out there,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: what are the triggerable events when it can be turned on,
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: and those businesses can entirely incorporate that into all of
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: their staffing and management profiles as well to keep us
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: all safe. And that's the outcome that we're after here.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: And so our hospitality businesses and also the government now
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: working towards making sure that there are those adequate plans
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: in place.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Look, I had really positive engagement with the Police Commissioner
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: last night and the Health Minister's office, and that is
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: not uncommon. There has always been a strong level of dialogue,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: especially since we went through the reopenings and you know,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: being able to pour some of the first beers in
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: the country again and all the excitement around that. So
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: that's why we would say that we don't think the
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: last day has been particularly helpful in the language from
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: some of the government representatives, but overall we do acknowledge
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: that we've had strong engagement as an industry and that's
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: why we were probably a little bit surprised yesterday.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Alex, talking of surprises, let's have a bit of a
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: discussion about the power out each that did happen yesterday.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: What's been the reaction from hospitality businesses around the top end?
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: How badly would they impact it.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: So the city barber understands still maintained power, which was good.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Some of the accommodation facilities in town were affected, others weren't.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: So anyone that's still had the air cons and the
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: cold beers pouring probably did a little bit better last
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: night than they otherwise would have. Ye, Fanny Day had
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: power the whole time. I'm aware that the clubs down
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: there were fielding calls pretty much immediately from the power
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: out it are you still on excellent? You know you
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: can't cook at home, so I'm going to get out.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: So it was very split. Bottle shops as far out
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: as Palmerston were refusing sales and turning people away because
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: the BDR system went down alongside a lot of the
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: POTS systems. I swung path perhap cabinet at one point
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: and it was completely dark and they couldn't open their tills,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: so there wasn't much trade and activity going on there.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: So I suppose we're just comfortable that the power did
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: come on, or happy that the power came on as
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: quickly as it did and we're not still dealing with
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: a dark day today.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, that is for sure.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: We are glad that the power is back on eve
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: And it sounds like it was quite a varied sort
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: of situation with the hospitality industry.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Alex Bruce see of Hospitality NT. We always
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: appreciate your time, mate, Thanks so much for having your
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: chat with us.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: Thank you