"There hasn't been the level of decisiveness that we expected from the government. If you look at what happened over the weekend,it was chaos and confusion,"he told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
On Sunday nightconfusion reigned as the state and federal governments implemented varying levels of lockdown measures whichworsened on Wednesday as more incremental lockdowns were put in place,banning spaces such as food courts and beauty salons,but allowing general retailers to keep trading.
Mr Facioni,who is also the executive director of investment company Alceon,pointed to the action taken in New Zealand,where almost all businesses willshut for four weeks in a nationwide lockdown,saying it was a clear and decisive move.
"We've made the very tough decision to close the stores as of tonight,but we couldn't go any longer with this level of confusion. We just had to make the call ourselves,"he said.
"This incremental approach is just prolonging the agony. Let's get this over and done with,just go into a shutdown."
All of Mosaic's store operations will be suspended from Thursday onwards,due in part to sharply declining sales and in part due to strict new social distancing rules,which the company said made it impossible for it to keep serving customers.