This morning two local cafe's that service office workers on St Kilda Rd, Melbourne closed their doors as the "stay at home policy" means that they do not have enough customers to support their small business and, as a result, are having to either reduce staff hours or worse, terminate their employment.

A good friend of mine is a self-employed travel agent and not only has her income totally dried-up & like many self-employed people has limited savings to enable her to pay her bills and rent.

My idea is a very simple one but one I believe can ease the economic impact being inflicted by COVID 19  and save both Australian jobs and businesses in the process.

Wages are the single biggest cost to Australian businesses and with businesses already looking to lay off or reduce staff hours, we need to look at ways to both reduce this cost and maintain people's employment.

I want to see the Government mandate that all commercial & residential rents and mortgages be suspended until such time as the COVID 19 situation passes.

I then want the employee to go to their employer with proof of their monthly rent/mortgage cost (or share of) and, as this cost is no longer applicable, the employer deducts this amount from their employees' wages thus significantly reducing the businesses overhead and allowing them to continue to trade and provide employment.

In-terms of repayments of the rents/mortgage payments that have been deferred, I am sure a sensible and fair formula can be created to see that these monies can be repaid through adjusted payments at a later stage.

And why would the lenders agree to this? Simple businesses going to the wall or closing up shop means fewer customers to sell products to....It's in their interest to keep these businesses alive.

Whilst I realise that this idea is no "silver bullet" I do believe it's a possible solution to easing the economic chaos that we are currently seeing.

If like me you think that this can work I implore you to share this so that we can see if it can traction.