COVID isolation periods to be cut – for some Australians

The New Daily
Aug 31, 2022, updated Aug 31, 2022

Isolation requirements were top of the agenda at Wednesday's national cabinet meeting. Photo: AAP

This story has been updated following Anthony Albanese’s post-national cabinet media briefing. Updated 5.05pm 31/08/2022

COVID isolation will be reduced across Australia within days, after a landmark agreement struck at national cabinet on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed the change from seven days’ isolation to five after meeting state and territory leaders in Sydney throughout the afternoon.

It will apply from Friday, September 9 – but only for those who do not have symptoms.

“Clearly, if you have symptoms, we want people to stay home. We want people to act responsibly,” Mr Albanese said.

The seven-day isolation rule will also still remain for workers in high-risk settings, including aged, disability and home care.

“I believe, and first ministers agreed, that on the balance of evidence, this was a proportionate response at this point in the pandemic,” he said.

The $750 weekly pandemic leave payments will also be updated from September 9 to reflect the new arrangements. Mr Albanese said a decision on other changes to pandemic leave would come within weeks.

In another major change agreed by national cabinet on Wednesday, masks will no longer be mandatory on domestic flights. It had also been flagged ahead of the first ministers’ meeting and follows the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee dropping its recommendation for masks to be worn inside airport terminals back in June.

Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews flagged his broad support for the isolation change. He said his state’s isolation rules would change rapidly if there was an agreement at national cabinet.

“Obviously there’s a process to vary orders and there’s an Act of Parliament that speaks to all of that. I don’t want to be speaking on behalf of the health minister, but I think we should move to that as fast as we possibly can,” he said.

“I think we would probably announce it to take effect in a few days’ time.”

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet led the push to change isolation periods, to help businesses struggling with workforce shortages.

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But Health Services Union secretary Gerard Hayes said this week isolation requirements should be scrapped all together, and the government needed to get ahead of the curve so people could live with the virus rather than ignoring rules they saw as an imposition.

State and territory leaders remained united on the pandemic leave payments, which had been due to expire at the end of September.

Mr Andrews and Mr Perrottet said the $750 payments must remain as long as COVID isolation was mandatory, regardless of for how long.

Mr Andrews said the government could not ask people to choose between keeping their workplaces healthy and feeding their children.

“I very much support continuing that pandemic payment,” he said.

“It doesn’t expire until the end of September but I would be very strongly of the view that our partnership with the Commonwealth should, in fact, continue.”

But Treasurer Jim Chalmers said that while the federal government would be responsive to the health advice, Australians should not expect the emergency payments to go on forever.

“The reality … is that kind of support can’t continue forever [and] it’s also contingent on some of the other ways that we’re responding to this health and economic challenge,” he said in Canberra on Wednesday.

“One of the issues at play is the length of the isolation period and, not wanting to pre-empt the discussion that will happen this afternoon, it’s a relevant consideration as well.”

If isolation requirements remained, payments must continue, the Australian Council of Trade Unions said.

“You need to make sure that people are supported to do so and you need to do that because of equity reasons, some people are paid [sick leave] and some aren’t,” ACTU secretary Sally McManus said.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said the community expected arrangements made at the height of the pandemic to be unwound over time.

“$750 [payments], I do think need to be reviewed as well, because many small business employers you speak to talk about that being big a problem for them to get started back,” he told Sky News on Wednesday.

“I support that Dominic Perrottet proposal, around reducing the seven days down to at least five. I think we do need to live with COVID now, that’s the reality.”