The Morrison government has committed an extra $48m to mental health measures after states and territories met on Friday to consider the supports in place for Australians as Covid-19 lockdown restrictions ease around the country.
Scott Morrison welcomed news that states and territories were “overwhelmingly through step one” of the three-stage easing of restrictions outlined on 8 May. From this weekend, cafes and restaurants will be open to 10 dine-in customers in most eastern states, except Victoria.
Morrison singled out the Northern Territory – the first jurisdiction to reopen pubs and gyms – by noting the chief minister Michael Gunner “was able to pull the first brew” on Friday.
The national cabinet met on Friday to discuss new mental health measures, a three-stage process to restore elective surgery and a framework to lift travel restrictions in remote communities.
After the meeting, the health minister, Greg Hunt, announced the mental health package, consisting of $29.5m of outreach for at-risk communities, $7.3m for collecting better data and $10.4m for an information campaign that “it’s okay not to be okay”.
Victoria has already committed $19.5m to mental health measures, with further packages expected from each state and territory.
In New South Wales, treasury officials told the Covid-19 committee on Friday that the Berejiklian government will also announce a package to support international students and higher education next week, following similar measures in Victoria.
Hunt revealed “heartening” early information from Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania that in the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic “there has been no known increase in suicide rates in those three states”.
Christine Morgan, the chief executive of the national mental health commission, said it was “heartening to look at those figures and to say it hasn’t got worse”.
“That doesn’t mean it couldn’t get worse,” she said, warning that further efforts to ensure people “stay connected” will be needed to guard against deteriorating mental health.
Morrison noted the human biosecurity emergency enabling broad commonwealth powers to respond to Covid-19 has been extended to 17 September.
Morrison was probed about whether coronavirus support measures including the jobkeeper wage subsidy, jobseeker unemployment benefit and free childcare will be extended.
Morrison said the education minister, Dan Tehan, was conducting a review but warned free childcare was “not a sustainable model for how the childcare sector should work, and nor was it intended to be. And so at this point, no final decision has been made on those issues.
“But the intention was always to return to the payment arrangements and subsidy arrangements that had been put in place prior to those things coming into effect.”
Morrison said that 1.6 million people were receiving jobseeker and the $1,500 fortnightly jobkeeper wage subsidy had now beaten estimates of reaching 6 million workers, with 6.1 million people receiving the payment.
The government has stared down internal calls to end jobkeeper sooner than September, but Morrison did not rule out changing the rate of the wage subsidy, after Labor suggested trimming the payment for some workers in return for expanded eligibility.
“Now, we’re only seven weeks now into a six-month program, and it is very premature, I think, to be making judgments about what possible changes might be made,” Morrison said.
Morrison played down US president Donald Trump’s suggestion that he could move the manufacture of parts for the F-35 joint strike fighter to the US, imperilling thousands of Australian jobs.
“We’ll see what occurs there as it rolls out,” Morrison said. “But we have our contracts and arrangements in place for all of those matters. So we’ll continue to pursue them in the normal way.
“And so I would caution against getting too far ahead of oneself when it comes to reading into the statements that have been made.”
Morrison dead-batted questions about the deteriorating relationship with China, refusing to censure backbench MP George Christensen for threatening to summons the Chinese ambassador to a parliamentary committee.
Australia has been hit by China’s plans to impose tariffs on barley imports and a ban on beef from four abattoirs.
“When it comes to our relationship with China, it is built on mutual benefit and we have a comprehensive strategic partnership which we’ve formed,” Morrison said. “And within that partnership, there are issues that need to be addressed from time to time.”