Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said new limitations would be applied to the number of times people can access paid pandemic leave.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said new limitations would be applied to the number of times people can access paid pandemic leave.Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

“The principle essentially agreed to by all first ministers is that,while the government requires mandated isolation,the government has a responsibility to provide support during that period for the appropriate period,” Albanese said in Sydney.

“We remain obviously of the view that if people are sick,whether from COVID or from other health issues,they should not be at work and that is important.”

The scheme,which has cost more than $2.2 billion since it was introduced in August 2020,is open to workers who must isolate but do not have access to sick pay entitlements,such as casuals. The payments were recently reduced from $750 to $540 after mandatory isolation was shortened from seven to five days.

The government tried to cut off the payments in July but relentedafter state and territory leaders demanded it be retained.

The three-claim maximum was introduced after Services Australia identified that some Australians had claimed the payments every six weeks over a six-month period.

Overall,the federal government has detected 57,000 suspicious pandemic leave claims worth $12 million as part of a fraud crackdown.

Government Services Minister Bill Shorten said on Tuesday his department was investigating suspected pandemic leave fraud,with more than 12,000 online claims worth more than $3.6 million “flagged as suspicious and blocked due to fraud concerns” in the six weeks to August 31. Half a million people having claimed the benefit in that time.

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Albanese said on Wednesday that,according to Services Australia,13 per cent of people who claimed payments more than once in the six months to June 30,claimed four or more times.

“That is a claim every 6.5 weeks or more,” he said.

Associate Professor Sanjaya Senanayake,an infectious diseases expert from the Australian National University,said that while people were more likely to be reinfected with Omicron subvariants than earlier strains of coronavirus,“to get three COVID infections in a six-month period would be pretty unlucky” in a highly vaccinated population like Australia.

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The new requirement to produce a doctor’s certificate to maintain pandemic payments beyond the five-day isolation period has been questioned by the Australian Council of Trade Unions,which describes it as an extra imposition on the health system.

ACTU Assistant Secretary Liam O’Brien said the union had concerns about the availability of bulk billing Telehealth appointments “along with the additional strain the requirement for a doctor’s certificate will place on the healthcare system,which is already under incredible pressure”.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar backed the decision to keep providing support for as long as mandatory isolation for infected individuals is required.

“Pandemic leave payments go hand in hand with mandatory isolation. We cannot have the removal of one without the other,” McKellar said. “With COVID-19 still spreading in the community,a complete removal of mandatory isolation is something business cannot afford.”

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news,views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley.Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.

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