Prime Minister Scott Morrison has confirmed extra support payments will be made available people who have lost work due to the lockdown in Greater Sydney.
The move comes after the lockdown was extended for another four weeks until the end of August.
From next week, the maximum payment of $600 to workers will be increased to $750, Mr Morrison said.
READ MORE: NSW forced into lockdown for another four weeks
For people who have lost fewer than 20 hours a week, the payment will be increased from $375 to $450, Mr Morrison said.
"In addition to that, we will be extending support to those who are on welfare payments and they will be able to receive a payment, if they have lost more than eight hours, of $200," he said.
Mr Morrison said the support for welfare recipients would not affect the support payments they were already receiving, including youth allowance and pensions.
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So far, 812,372 disaster payments have been issued to 463,558 people in NSW.
"The total amount out of the door and in the bank accounts of those who need it in New South Wales is already $411.7 million," Mr Morrison said.
People can apply for the financial support at the Services Australia website.
PM defends JobKeeper call
Mr Morrison defended the decision to not reintroduce JobKeeper, though the newly increased NSW payments are at the same level.
"What we are doing now is faster, it is more effective, it is more targeted, it is getting help where it is needed, far more quickly," he said.
"We are not dealing with a pandemic outbreak across the whole country.
"When we did JobKeeper, we had to employ it across the whole country. All at once. And we did it for six months."
He said JobKeeper didn't have the flexibility of the current arrangement.
Businesses would also see support initiatives extended too during the prolonged lockdown, Mr Morrison said.
"We have worked together again to provide this increased support which would see business cash flow initiatives extending out to businesses of $250 million turnover, maximum payments of $100,000.
"Up to 40 per cent of turnover and a minimum payment of $1500 to those smaller businesses.
"I also don't want people to forget that there's a $1000 a week payment to sole traders as well."
'Very different Australia' by Christmas
Mr Morrison said there was "no shortcut" to curbing Sydney's COVID-19 outbreak.
"We have to push through this lockdown," he said.
"We just have to hunker down and push through."
He urged Sydneysiders to abide by restrictions and get vaccinated.
Mr Morrison said that by Christmas he expected we would see "a very different Australia".
He said vaccination rates were currently over one million a week.
"The revised advice from ATAGI means that we are going to get much more effectiveness out of the AstraZeneca vaccine doses that we have available," he said.
"And I commend the NSW Government on opening those walk-in clinics.
"I would encourage other state and territory governments to look at similar initiatives."
He said when a population was sufficiently vaccinated, lockdowns become "a thing of the past".
"We are setting the target scientifically, combined with the economic advice as well, and that gets us a roadmap to Christmas, I think, which means we will be living life differently at Christmas than we are now."
