Stopping financial COVID support was inevitable but will it rupture a fragile Team Australia

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced the inevitable on Wednesday - that COVID-19 disaster relief payments to furloughed workers would come to end once vaccination rates met the 80 per cent trigger to prevent mass lockdowns.

While the tapered approach from the Commonwealth is measured and sees a gradual wind-down of the support payment when 70 per cent double-dose levels are reached, questions remain how varying jurisdictions under lockdown will respond once the safety blanket has been ripped away.

The tightening of the federal money tap also prompts speculation whether Labor-controlled states and territories will lash out at the Morrison government, over claims it is putting pressure on an earlier reopening.

The once gold standard NSW is pushing for a more ambitious reopening at the 70 per cent threshold, a move likely to leave a sour taste in the mouth of the Premier in charge of the hermit kingdom, formally known as Western Australia.

Nor the woman at the helm of the land north of the corrugated iron curtain (Queensland).

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The federal government says the wind-down of financial support follows Phase B of the plan agreed to by national cabinet.

But the national plan to easing hard lockdowns looks completely different whether you're in either the ACT, Victoria or NSW. And the varying rules imposed by the states and territories could mean some workers are more impacted.

Taking retail as an example, NSW is ambitiously allowing retail to resume once the 70 per cent double dose vaccination target is met, but in Victoria, Premier Daniel Andrews won't lift restrictions on the sector until 80 per cent of the population is double vaccinated.

In the ACT, Chief Minister Andrew Barr announced this week that click-and-collect for retail would resume at 70 per cent and would ease at the end of the October, once jab rates were above the second hurdle.

Australian Retailers Association chief executive Paul Zahra told The Canberra Times, the lack of continuity between the states and territories was the frustrating factor, particularly for small businesses waiting to reopen the doors.

He said Victoria's slower reopening of retail would hinder job hiring in the sector ahead of the important Christmas trading season.

"It's not fair that support payments are tapered off when there are different trigger points for businesses reopening. It will result in an uneven recovery and unfairly punish workers depending on where they're living," Mr Zahra said.

Mr Barr has flagged that the ACT would get support until at least the end of October, suggesting the Canberra Bubble would play along with the federal government's desire to reopen the country by Christmas.

But a complicit Barr may have something to do with a new joint package with the federal government, to assist sectors such as tourism, hospitality and fitness which are touted to be financially hindered for months to come.

The political optics on income support may not have yet played out, but the ACT can revel in the fact that its high vaccination rates will bring normality back sooner.

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