Albanese signs off on restoring the $750 pandemic isolation payment in policy reversal

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will sign off on restoring the $750 pandemic isolation payment, reversing course on his earlier stance to let the payment lapse over winter.

National cabinet has been brought forward by two days to Saturday morning by Albanese in a snap decision that underscores the urgent need to address the growing number of COVID cases in Australia.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Premier of New South Wales Dominic Perrottet.Credit:Louie Douvis

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet on Friday led the states’ campaign to reinstate the $750 payment for casuals and others with no access to sick pay, and the premiers will continue to push for free rapid antigen tests for concession-card holders.

He also backed a debate about reducing the current seven-day isolation period to five days, though he insisted he did not want that to happen while Sydney faced a challenging flu season and a surge in COVID cases.

Albanese will advocate for a time-limited reinstatement of the payment at the cabinet meeting as infections skyrocket and hospitalisations increase.

The prime minister announced the decision late Friday evening on Twitter after receiving an urgent briefing from Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly, Health Department secretary Brendan Murphy and Health Minister Mark Butler.

Albanese tweeted that he would “report to National Cabinet tomorrow [Saturday] morning and we will discuss proposals to ensure the vulnerable are protected over coming weeks”.

Albanese flew back from the Pacific Islands’ Forum in Fiji and straight into the briefing with Butler, Kelly and Murphy over surging COVID infections and hospitalisations.

Australia recorded 43,488 new cases over the last 24 hours and another 90 hospitalisations, taking that current total to 4,602 people.

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age confirmed with several federal ministers, who asked not to be named so they could discuss confidential deliberations, that there was growing recognition on Friday that the payment had to be restarted, amid warnings of millions of new infections before winter is finished.

“We should move on it,” one minister said. “Do we actually want people to work when they’ve got COVID?”

On Friday morning, Albanese defended the decision to axe the payment because of Australia’s trillion-dollar debt but left the door ajar to restoring it.

“We’ll give consideration to all of these issues. But we inherited these decisions – but we also inherited a trillion dollars of debt. And that’s something that was not our responsibility,” he said.

Perrottet said on Friday said he was open to “all discussions” at National Cabinet about funding isolation payments, including the potential for a 50-50 split, but he later told the Herald and the Age such payments were traditionally the responsibility of the federal government.

“If the government forces you to not go to work because of public health orders, I fundamentally believe the government should compensate you,” he said.

“We believe it is more appropriate for the federal government to provide individual payments as it has throughout the pandemic, where the states have always had the responsibility for business support and public health.”

On the proposal to cut the pandemic isolation period, he said that “if health authorities believe that is appropriate, as they have in other countries, we should take that on board”.

“And whilst that is the case for the UK, they are not in winter. We have to be conscious of the fact we are in the middle of winter.”

While Victoria supports the return of emergency payments and free rapid antigen tests for concession-card holders, the state has been relatively muted in the debate while Premier Daniel Andrews is on leave.

A senior government source in Queensland, who asked not to be named, said the state backed New South Wales’ view as it would be a significant shift in pandemic policy for the federal government to force states to split the bill for individual support payments.

A spokesman for the South Australian government said on Friday that “the state government would support a short extension of the COVID-19 Pandemic Leave Disaster Payment to help workers who have no sick leave entitlements”.

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