The federal government announced financial support for people who have lost work due to COVID-19 would soon be phased out to discourage states from imposing border restrictions or lockdowns.
The Commonwealth-funded COVID-19 disaster payment provides $750/week to people who lost at least 20 hours of work, and $450/week to those who lost between eight and 20 hours.
When a state or territory reaches 70 per cent fully vaccinated, people will have to reapply each week for the payment, instead of it being automatically renewed. At 80 per cent, within two weeks the payment schema will be stopped entirely.
"If you look around the world whether it is in the UK, US, Canada, Japan, people are starting to get about their normal lives, learning to live with the virus in a Covid-safe way, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told The Sunrise hosts this morning.
Federal finance minister Simon Birmigham confirmed the plan on ABC News Breakfast too.
This comes after Prime Minister Scott Morrison made it clear on weekend that state leaders have a duty to reopen their borders so that Australians can have “their lives back” by Christmas.
The PM implied that once the hesitant premiers will find themselves in a difficult situation if they don’t open up and continue to isolate their residents from the country.
“My message is to Australians that what I‘d like them to have for Christmas is their lives back.”
The federal government says international travel would also be resumed in the coming weeks and the NSW will start accepting international students and visitors with short home quarantine.
The developments will build up enormous pressure in these states not just from within but also from losing revenue, jobs, disaster payments and other to-be-declared federal incentives.
This would create a paradoxical situation where a NSW resident can travel to and from Europe, North America or Asia but can't visit Queensland. On the other hand, it would mean Queenslanders or Western Australians or Northern Territorians can't technically travel anywhere and lose in business activity without federal compensation due to the self-imposed restrictions.
