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$150 boost: Casual workers’ Covid-19 payments increased

Australian notes scattered on a table. Covid-19 hardship payment concept.
Victorians will receive boosted payments. Image: Getty

Victorian casual workers will receive an additional $150 incentive to stay home while they’re waiting on Covid-19 test results, Premier Daniel Andrews has revealed.

The temporary $300 payment will be increased to $450 in a bid to keep more people at home as they wait to see if they test positive.

The payments are available to employees who do not have any sick leave.

“We think $450 is a better reckoning for the loss of income that they … would simply draw down on their sick leave, and that would be closer to a payment of around $450,” Andrews said on Thursday.

“We think $450 is a fair payment, particularly for people for whom their employment circumstances might lead them to make the choice to not get tested at all or perhaps, get tested but then go to work while they were waiting for the results of those tests.”

He said the new rate came after talks with employers, unions and Australians who already accessed the $300 payments.

This payment is in addition to the $1,500 granted to workers without paid sick leave who do test positive to the respiratory virus.

Andrews said the Victorian government has so far paid around 17,000 Victorians those $300 payments.

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