The Victorian government is fuming after Scott Morrison announced New South Wales would be getting federal financial assistance during lockdown.
Affected businesses in Greater Sydney will get JobKeeper-style payments to keep them afloat as the region continues to see dozens of new coronavirus cases each day.
Under the scheme, people who have lost more than 20 hours of work per week will get a payment of $600, which is $100 more than what was offered at the start of the latest lockdown.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the move was crucial to helping people doing it tough and insisted the same financial help would be offered to other states and territories in the future if they go into lockdown.
"Clearly, here in NSW, the situation has taken a very different turn. We think this gives people the encouragement to see it through," he said.
However, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has slammed the move as 'double standards' because he claims his state wasn't given the same type of help for weeks when it experienced its fourth lockdown earlier this year.
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A spokesperson for Mr Andrews has released a seething statement that revealed how hurt he was about the help to NSW.
"Everyone in Australia believes that people in Sydney and NSW deserve every possible support as they battle a second wave and a long lockdown," a government spokesperson said in the statement to 9News.
"But Victorians are rightly sick and tired of having to beg for every scrap of support from the Federal Government.
"It shouldn't take a crisis in Sydney for the Prime Minister to take action but we are seeing the same double standard time and time again. His job is not to be the Prime Minister for NSW.
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"We had to shame the Federal Government into doing their job and providing income support for Victorian workers when we battled the Delta strain earlier this year.
"Their position at the time was a disgrace.
"If they had bothered to think about this at the time and work with Victoria, they'd already have had a practical framework in place when NSW went into lockdown and more people would have got the support they need earlier."
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The Prime Minister's office has hit back and slammed Victoria for 'politicising' the situation.
"Victoria received the same support for its two week 'circuit breaker' lockdown as NSW has for its first two weeks of lockdown," a spokesperson said in a statement. "The conditions for payments and the levels of payments were exactly the same."
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: Australia