Australian PM Morrison: Situation the country faces should be managed on the balance of risk

Australian Prime Minister (PM) Scott Morrison is making some comments on wage relief amid escalating covid concerns during his address on Wednesday.

Additional quotes

"I'll be open with you — we've had our challenges with this program. We've had significant challenges with this program as many countries have, but what matters is how you respond to them. What matters is how you fix the things that need to be fixed and get the program doing what it needs to be doing and hitting the vaccination rates it needs to hit to ensure that we can get to where we need to be, where we want to be.”

"It's a constant appeal. I can assure you. It's a constant appeal that the situation Australia faces should be managed on the balance of risk.”

“The payments as you know are $600 for 20 hours lost in the period of the previous week. And $375 if it's less than 20 hours and more than eight or a full day of work lost in the course of that week. You make your claim at the end of the week based on what happened during that week.”

"Of course, when the lockdowns are lifted that's when the payments are no longer necessary and people, hopefully, they go straight back to work and people go back to the economy moving forward and they will be able to be in a position of being supported by their employment. That gives you an update of where we're at."