People unable to work due to a lockdown lasting more than 7 days will be paid up to $500 a week

People in NSW may be eligible for the PM’s new $500 a week lockdown payment if their area is declared a Covid hotspot.

Australians subjected to more than seven days in lockdown will be able to get up to $500 a week in support payment if their workplace closes.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced a new weekly Temporary Covid Disaster Payment will go to people who work more than 20 hours a week, or $325 for people who work less hours in the second and any subsequent weeks of a state-ordered lockdown.

“The first seven days, they are matters entirely for state and territory governments, as they wish to provide support,” he said.

“If a lockdown, as a result of a state public health order continues in an area that is

also defined (as a hot spot) by the chief officer of the Commonwealth, then we will be providing support for payments for … those affected areas.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced a new emergency payment for people trapped in state lockdowns. Picture: Sam Mooy/Getty Images

To be eligible the person must have less than $10,000 in assets and have exhausted pandemic leave, though they don’t have to use annual leave.

The person must not be receiving any kind of income support like Jobseeker and must be an Australian citizen or have the relevant work visa.

Mr Morrison will take the plan to national cabinet where states will be asked to agree on how to split the costs of the payment.

He suggested the household payment would either be shared 50-50 with states or that possibly the Commonwealth would cover the full amount if states covered the full amount for any support given to businesses during lockdown.

Millions of people were stood down during the first pandemic lockdown in 2020. Picture: Adam Head

Mr Morrison said the payment could be extended to just a particular suburb, such as the Northern Beaches lockdown last Christmas, or an entire metropolitan area as was currently the case in Melbourne.

He said it could also be applied “even more broadly” to a whole state, if the Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly determined the region a hotspot.

Currently the federal government considers a metro area a hotspot if the rolling three-day average was 10 locally acquired cases per day, or 30 cases in three consecutive days.

For regional areas it’s three cases on average, or nine cases across three consecutive days.

However a hotspot declaration can also be made if there is a case of infection in the community with a “more transmissible variant” and the potential for wide community exposure.

The outbreak in Victoria currently is the Indian strain of Covid-19, now known as the Kappa variant.

Mr Morrison said Professor Kelly had already confirmed the Commonwealth hotspot declaration would remain in place for Melbourne for the next seven days.