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Businesses in New South Wales are waiting anxiously on a support package from the Berejiklian government as the state comes to grips with a two-week lockdown.
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NSW financial support incoming as state enters 2-week lockdown
28 June 2021
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New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Monday announced 18 new active cases of COVID-19 across the state, two days after the state was sent into lockdown.
“While the numbers today are less than the numbers yesterday,” Ms Berejiklian said, “we have to be prepared for the numbers to bounce around and we have to be prepared for the numbers to go up considerably.”
Of the 18 cases announced on Monday, 15 were locally acquired, and three are linked to people from overseas. The Premier said “about a third” were detected among those already in isolation.
New South Wales was sent into lockdown on Saturday afternoon, 11 days — and more than 100 cases — after the Delta strain entered the country on 16 June, prompting retaliatory restrictions in Queensland and the Northern Territory, after the rest of the state went into lockdown, too.
State support
The Premier on Saturday announced that her government would introduce support to the state’s businesses, details of which are set to be revealed in the coming days. The state’s budget, handed down by Treasurer Dominic Perrottet last week, allotted $5.1 billion for combating COVID-19, $800 million of which is set to be spent by the end of the 2021 calendar year.
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“Obviously, there are provisions for us and we will, as a state government in the next few days,” Ms Berejiklian said, “we’ll be announcing support to businesses, and also the federal government support to households kicks in at a certain time.
“And obviously, that will kick in. So, nobody should feel stressed or pressured to break any of the rules because of their financial situation.”
Federal support
The federal government’s Commonwealth’s COVID-19 disaster payment will be made available to “Sydneysiders” from 1 July, Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed on Saturday.
Workers who are unable to work because of lockdown restrictions will be eligible for $500 a week if they normally work more than 20 hours each week, and those who work less than 20 hours receive $325 weekly until restrictions ease.
Eligible workers will include Australian citizens, residents and visa holders who are permitted to work in Australia and aged 17 and older.
“It’s difficult news today for my fellow Sydneysiders as we learn we will go into lockdown tonight from 6pm across the greater metropolitan area — from up in the Central Coast, out in the Blue Mountains and down into Wollongong,” Mr Morrison said on Saturday.
“To support Sydneysiders going through this time, from the first of July, the Commonwealth disaster recovery payments for the pandemic will kick in and you’ll be able to access those by contacting Services Australia.”
Though, so far, the Commonwealth’s chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, has only declared Greater Sydney as a Commonwealth hotspot, leaving regional NSW ineligible for the disaster payment.
The New South Wales outbreak, dubbed the “Bondi cluster”, is thought to have started with a limousine driver who brought the doubly transmissible Delta strain into the country. However, genomics experts have yet to confirm him as patient zero.
Mr Morrison deflected responsibility for the outbreak, despite steering a cumbersome national vaccine rollout, saying last week that it’s on the state for failing to enforce mandatory vaccination rules to cover international aircrew who are thought to have passed on the virus to the state’s population.
When asked on Sunday whether the flaw emerged as a state government policy failure because drivers are only encouraged, not obliged, to get the jab, health minister Brad Hazzard said “you can’t legislate for stupidity”.
“While we can’t make laws against stupidity, we can remind individuals who are not compliant to keep themselves and, therefore, our community safe, that there are substantial penalties,” Mr Hazzard told reporters on Sunday.
The outbreak managed to travel some 3,200 kilometres to Perth, where epidemiologists have linked a case to Sydney’s Bondi cluster, while the Northern Territory announced a snap 48-hour lockdown on discovery of an unrelated case in the territory.
Queensland reported two new locally acquired cases of the virus, which it will look to manage with a suite of light restrictions, set to be in effect for two weeks.
The new outbreaks have led to renewed calls for the Morrison government to expedite its vaccination rollout and, even, announce the return of a federal wage subsidy like JobKeeper.
Bill Bowtell AO, adjunct professor of strategic health policy at the University of New South Wales, on Monday said Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s focus should be solely on restoring JobKeeper payments to the “millions of businesses and workers again affected by lockdowns”.
“Protecting this generation takes priority today,” Mr Bowtell said.
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