Australia politics live: national cabinet to meet over fuel crisis; Iran stress hits Anthony Albanese in the polls

More assistance to businesses amid ballooning petrol prices expected to be discussed as prime minister and premiers meet. Follow updates live

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Government avoiding ‘heavier handed interventions’

Work from home “makes a lot of sense” right now says the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, but he says the government won’t be enforcing Covid-style mandates on households.

The best way to get through this is to get through it together, to work through these issues, in a coordinated and ideally consistent way around the country. and the best way to avoid the kind of harsher Covid style measures is to do that work. And the better we do at the front end of this, challenge that we have in our economy, the more likely we are to avoid some of those kind of harsher measures and restrictions down the track.

We’re trying to avoid, those, kind of a heavier handed Covid interventions. But work from home in a number of instances makes a lot of sense. the Prime Minister has indicated, more of a willingness to go down the voluntary path than the compulsory path.

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