It has reignited calls from the Australian Restaurant and Cafe Association for the hospitality sector to be included in the list of sectors that prioritises visas. “No matter what migration policy that the current or future governments land on, they need to face the reality that chefs and cooks and restaurant managers from overseas are one of the most in demand skilled workers in Australia,” association chief executive Wes Lambert said.

But Wes Lambert, chief executive of the Australian Restaurant and Cafe Association, said the changes would actually make scheme fees charged by card networks like Eftpos and Visa more opaque. As a result, he said merchant fees – which are the total transaction fees paid by businesses – could climb from around one per cent to US levels of 2.5-3 per cent.

Most cafes or restaurants have raised prices in some way, either by raising menu prices or increasing weekend or public holiday surcharges, said Wes Lambert, chief executive of the Australian Restaurant and Cafe Association. “Increasing prices can always affect demand, so that certainly is an unintended consequence that the RBA could not have predicted, because they believed that prices would only go up 0.1 per cent,” he said.