National cabinet to back Covid payment

National cabinet appears set to extend $540 pandemic leave payments beyond September.

Anthony Albanese on Tuesday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

National cabinet appears set to extend $540 pandemic leave payments beyond September, after Anthony Albanese said governments should support Australians while they were being forced to isolate with Covid-19.

The Prime Minister will conduct a phone hook-up with premiers and chief ministers on Wednesday to decide whether to continue the payments, which have cost the federal budget $320m – or some $6m a day – since they were reinstated on July 20.

Mr Albanese said the price tag was not too high, with more than $2.2bn paid out since the start of the pandemic to Aus­tralians who had been unable to earn an income because of Covid-19 isolation requirements.

“My own view is that while governments place or impose restrictions, then governments have responsibility as a result of those decisions,” he said.

His comments echo those of NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff and come after national cabinet agreed at the end of August to reduce mandatory isolation restrictions from seven to five days.

Mr Perrottet’s spokesman said it was important that any changes to the pandemic leave payments – which the Albanese government was forced to ­extend for three months until September 30 following political pressure from the union movement, business and community groups – were nationally consistent.

“As the Premier has said previously, if isolation requirements remain in place then joint commonwealth payments should continue,” he said.

The payments are worth $450 for people who lost at least eight and fewer than 20 hours of work, or $540 for those who lost 20 hours or more of work.

Mr Andrews on Tuesday said he believed the payment was highly likely to be continued with the existing 50-50 arrangement between Canberra and the states.

“My position – and I think it’s the position of a number of other first ministers, but I won’t speak for them – but Victoria’s position is to continue the ­arrangements for so long as we have mandatory iso periods,” Mr Andrews said.

“Whilst these matters are ultimately a matter for the commonwealth, we have arrange­ments in place now, and I think the best we’ll do is to see them extended on the basis that they’re currently being paid.”

A spokeswoman for Mr Andrews later added: “People should be financially supported if the public health advice is that they are required to isolate.

“The alternative means making ­people choose between being able to put food on the table or isolate to keep others safe.”

Mr Rockliff said if governments wanted people to isolate for the safety of others, they must “step up and support those ­people so that they are able to maintain budgets at what is already a challenging time”.

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan declined to provide a position on the payments “out of respect” for the national cabinet process.

Additional reporting: Matthew Denholm, Max Maddison, Paul Garvey