Scott Morrison has resisted pressure to make rapid antigen tests available for free, saying the government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to support Australians through the pandemic, but it was now time to wind that back.
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese backed calls from pharmacists for tests to be exempted from the Goods and Services Tax, and said tests should be free for those who cannot afford them.
Supermarkets and chemist shops are suffering from a shortage of the self-administered tests after the collapse of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing system ahead of Christmas, when hundreds of thousands of people rushed to get checked after being exposed to the more infectious Omicron strain or to comply with state government imposed travel requirements.
There have been reports of price gouging by some retailers, with the Morrison government refusing to make the tests widely available for free, in contrast with the approach taken in Europe and the US.
Mr Morrison defended that decision.
“We’re at another stage of this pandemic now where we just can’t go round and make everything free. We have to live with this virus,” he told Channel 7.
“This isn’t a medicine, it’s a test. And so, there’s a difference between those two things. They are available at $15, and we are working on arrangements, as I flagged two weeks ago, for concessional access to those who are pensioners and others.
“We’ve invested hundreds of billions of dollars getting Australia through this crisis. But we’re now in a stage of the pandemic, where you can’t just make everything free because when someone tells you they want to make something free, someone’s always going to pay for it and it’s going to be you.”
Chemist Warehouse chief Mario Tascone urged the government to remove the 10 per cent GST on the rapid tests, similar to how women’s sanitary products no longer attract the impost.
Mr Albanese backed that, and said tests should also be available free for those who cannot pay for one.
“No one should be excluded from getting a rapid antigen test because of their income,” Mr Albanese told the ABC.
“At the very least, people who cannot afford one should be able to get one and should be given one.
“What we have here is a government that has failed to prepare.”
Health Minister Greg Hunt said there was no impediment at the Commonwealth level to remove the GST on tests, but it needed all the states to agree because they were the recipients of the tax revenue.
Mr Hunt said it was “sheer folly” to make tests free for all, arguing that charging people on the private market helped mitigate some demand at a time of high global demand for test kits.
He said 100 million test kits would be available in Australia over the next couple of months.
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