The national cabinet was meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to discuss the change, pushed by NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews remained cautious ahead of the meeting. He is open to a change, as long as it is consistent with health advice.

“I’d be hopeful that we can make a nationally consistent decision and I think that’s exactly what will happen,” he said.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr remains even more cautious, believing current settings should be maintained for now.

But Andrews and Perrottet are united on paid pandemic leave, saying the $750 payments must remain as long as COVID isolation is mandatory, regardless of for how long.

The payments were extended by the federal government as Australia’s most recent wave of the virus escalated in July. They are due to expire at the end of September.

But Treasurer Jim Chalmers said that while the federal government would be responsive to the health advice, Australians should not expect the emergency payments to go on forever.

“The reality … is that kind of support can’t continue forever [and] it’s also contingent on some of the other ways that we’re responding to this health and economic challenge,” he said.

“One of the issues at play is the length of the isolation period and, not wanting to pre-empt the discussion that will happen this afternoon, it’s a relevant consideration as well.”

If isolation requirements remained, payments must continue, the Australian Council of Trade Unions said.

“You need to make sure that people are supported to do so and you need to do that because of equity reasons, some people are paid [sick leave] and some aren’t,” ACTU secretary Sally McManus said.

Andrews said the government could not ask people to choose between keeping their workplaces healthy and feeding their children.

“I very much support continuing that pandemic payment,” he said.

“It doesn’t expire until the end of September but I would be very strongly of the view that our partnership with the Commonwealth should, in fact, continue.”

Andrews said if there was consensus on cutting COVID isolation to five days, the Victorian rules would change “as soon as possible”.

“Obviously there’s a process to vary orders and there’s an Act of Parliament that speaks to all of that. I don’t want to be speaking on behalf of the health minister, but I think we should move to that as fast as we possibly can,” he said.

“I think we would probably announce it to take effect in a few days’ time.”

Perrottet has led the push to cut the virus isolation period from seven to five days to help businesses struggling with workforce shortages.

But Health Services Union secretary Gerard Hayes said isolation requirements should be scrapped all together, and the government needed to get ahead of the curve so people could live with the virus rather than ignoring rules they saw as an imposition.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said the community expected arrangements made at the height of the pandemic to be unwound over time.

“$750 [payments], I do think need to be reviewed as well, because many small business employers you speak to talk about that being big a problem for them to get started back,” he said.

“I support that Dominic Perrottet proposal, around reducing the seven days down to at least five. I think we do need to live with COVID now, that’s the reality.”