PM says Covid-19 cash not needed
ANTHONY Albanese says workers don’t need pandemic leave because employers are already allowing them to work from home while sick.
The Prime Minister on Friday doubled down on his insistence that the government could not reinstate a $750 payment to casuals who did not have sick leave.
“The idea that no one is getting any sick leave at the moment, it’s just not the case,” he said in Fiji. “Good employers are recognising that people are continuing to work from home while they have Covid and are receiving, therefore, payments through that.”
The furore over the government’s decision to axe the payments is the Prime Minister’s first big test since the election.
Mr Albanese was to return to Australia later on Friday after spending three days in Suva for the Pacific Islands Forum.
He was expecting to meet fury from the unions, state leaders, the opposition and members of his own backbench who have questioned the decision to axe the sick leave payment.
Labor MPS Mike Freelander and Michelle AnandaRajah, both doctors, on Thursday said the payments should be extended. ACTU secretary Sally Mcmanus also said she hoped Mr Albanese would back down.
“When you have a whole lot of people sick, the economy is sick … You can’t, on the one hand, say people have to stay at home and on the other hand say you are not going to get paid and you are left with nothing,” she said.
“It is abandoning people and not the Australian way, we have to fix it.”
Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston asked the government to explain why it was abandoning workers.
“What we’re questioning is the timing of the removal of these Covid supports as we’re just heading into what the medical experts are saying is a very dangerous wave,” she said. “Is the decision being made by the government based on the health advice?”
Health Minister Mark Butler confirmed the government had received no health advice regarding the scheme.
A snap national cabinet meeting will be held on Monday to discuss how to best deal with the surge of Covid cases.
Earlier this week, Mr Butler warned that millions of Australians could catch the virus in the coming weeks.
Hospitals and healthcare workers across the country are struggling under the immense pressure of increased admissions amid the current Covid-19 wave.
There are more than 4500 Australians in hospital receiving treatment, with 139 in ICU beds.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was the first to publicly call for the meeting amid what she described as “mixed messages” from the federal government.
“The country just wants to know how this wave is going,” she said on Thursday.