National Cabinet Updates

The PM just addressed the media:

• Joined by IR Minister, Christian Porter & Chair of the COVID19 Commission, Nev Power
• No matters to report from a health point of view today. That will come on Friday at next Nat Cab meeting. CMO will hold normal press briefing though (not sure if this meant today)
• Today’s focus if briefing – getting Australia back to work.
• Hundreds of thousands of Australians have been protected in terms of health and lives have been saved.
• Decisions made that have managed to curb the health and economic impacts – costs would be greater if they weren’t made, but still these decisions have come at a cost
• To get Australians back to work, their workplaces have to be COVID safe, National Cab is working on what a COVID safe economy will look like.
• More than 1 million JobSeeker applications processed, 5 million on JobKeeper, 1 million accessing super, 384,000 businesses receiving $1B cash flow assistance
• [ScoMo then showed slides regarding impacts on economy (jobs/activity) – will circulate when available online]
• Economic activity and job availability falls in all states (particularly VIC/NSW/QLD)
• Not seeking to delay getting economy back on track but must be taken carefully, with COVID safe workplaces.
• Numbers/outbreaks will occur when restrictions are eased.
• Businesses, employers and employees need the tools to operate a COVID safe workplace.
• Downloads of COVID app – 5 million today, 16 million targeted, Govt is about 1/3 of the way there.
• App’s job is to keep people safe. If you come into contact with someone, you will be able to be contacted and you can make decisions around this. First job of the app is to keep ‘YOU’ safe – best reason to download. Reiterated people needing to keep downloading.
• Restrictions costing $4B a week.

Christian Porter

• Health and safety strict legal requirements, all employers have to comply to manage risks, and will need to do so with COVID
• Monitoring and enforcement occurs in each state/territory
• Nat Cab has adopted safe workplace principles – consistency in approach across Australia
• COVID Safe App – very important to get back to normal
• COVID19 Planning Toolkit – being worked on
• SafeWork Australia COVID19 website - 1 million visits, a lot higher than normal hits to SafeWork website
• SafeWork website will provide consistent detailed granular level information as a head start to every business in Australia, so as to the best way to cope with the new COVID safe environment
• It will describe what measures will mean for a particular jurisdiction, type of business – how you will engage social distancing/hygiene/cleaning/PPE – how this will apply to different types of business
• It will help to safely reanimate businesses

Nev Power

• Working with everyone across industries, working with businesses to help with issues, on how to operate and how to get businesses ready
• 4 key issues
  • Reconfiguring and restructuring work sites, business by business
  • How to respond if there is an incident
  • How do we return that workplace to a safe place to work
  • Communication process, ensuring everyone knows what to do
• With SafeWork, we will have a complete COVID19 toolkit available.
• Some businesses already operating in reconfigured workplace, some not yet there, some need help.
• Want to get people back at work, but while keeping work safe.
• Configure workplace to introduce social distancing / hygiene measures as a higher level of activity is introduced and as the economy gets back on track again.
• We don’t want to introduce restrictions again, we want to be able to deal with outbreaks as they occur instead.
• Looking forward to a more relaxed restriction world but we still need to do the right thing.

Q&A

• ScoMo wants students back to school and is based on health advice as it consistently has been.
• Friday will be a roadmap session which shows Australia the path back to normality.
• PM Ardern joined today, first time NZ PM has joined for a very long time. PM invited her. They discussed a safe travel zone but still some time away – but wanted to flag so it can be done in future.
• ScoMo doesn’t want open/shut, open/shut of businesses.