Rapid antigen tests; price of rapid tests; queues for PCR tests; Omicron.

PAUL CULLIVER, HOST: Anthony Albanese is the Leader of the Opposition and the Australian Labor Party and is my guest this afternoon. Good after to you, Anthony Albanese.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good afternoon, Paul. Good to be with you.
 
CULLIVER: What is the price that you think is a fair price for a rapid antigen test when sold at retail stores right now?
 
ALBANESE: Well, what we know is that overseas they’ve been nothing like that cost. They’re either free or they are at minimal cost, certainly single dollar figure equivalents, not the sort of figures that we just heard from Leo whereby, quite clearly, there’s price gouging occur. To charge $65 for a test. We know that often people have to take more than one. If it’s a family, you’re talking about hundreds of dollars being required. And it simply isn’t affordable. And to face people with that unenviable choice of choosing between what they think is right for their health and not being able to, in Leo’s case, have a meal for a couple of nights is just absurd. Here in Australia, with healthcare, with Medicare as its centrepiece, we have a longstanding view, certainly in the Labor party, that people who need healthcare are entitled to get it, that in the end, if you don’t do that, all the record from overseas, if you look at the US system, is that it ends up costing you more. And certainly, with COVID, it is quite extraordinary that people have been able to have the full test, if you like, by queuing for hours and hours, but they’re free, but people can’t find a rapid antigen test and if they are lucky enough to find them, they can’t afford them, for many people.
 
CULLIVER: Is there a fair price? Is there a dollar figure you’re saying should be a fair price at this point in time?
 
ALBANESE: I’m not plucking a figure. I’m not into that game, and then someone goes higher and someone gets lower. The point is that anyone who needs one, the price shouldn't stop them getting one. If they need it, they should be given it.
 
CULLIVER: Well is that not the case? But to be fair, in states and territories at the moment there are stockpiles. Those that are deemed to need one, so if you’re showing symptoms, if you’re a close contact, there are criteria by which you can access one.
 
ALBANESE: If you get through. There's a range of people who haven't been able to access one. Like there's a range of people who have had their booster shots scheduled, that they've had deferred. I've got people ringing my office certainly saying that they haven't been able to schedule, they’re due for their booster but can't get an appointment before February. We know that people are supposed to be able to have the PCR tests. But for many of them they queue for five or six hours only to be told that the testing centres are closed. Here in New South Wales, 28 centres closed today. So the boosters are part of the problem. The fact that the rollout is so late, which derives around from the fact that the vaccine rollout originally was so slow to begin with. Then people can't get tested and people, in terms of rapid antigen tests have basically been substituted because of the failure of the capacity of the testing regime, and people can't get access to them either.
 
CULLIVER: Anthony Albanese is your guest this afternoon, Leader of the Opposition. I’m trying to figure out whether there was a lack of foresight from, sort of, everyone involved here when it came to rapid antigen tests. There was lots of focus on building more quarantine facilities. There was focus on domestic production of vaccines. Where was the preparation and where were politicians on both sides of the aisle saying we need to stockpile rapid antigen tests?

ALBANESE: Well, quarantine facilities, there aren’t any. There hasn't been a single purpose-built quarantine facility built since COVID began.
 
CULLIVER: Well, there are states getting on with it. But my question is about rapid antigen tests.  
 
ALBANESE: No there’s not. There’s only Queensland is really advancing, by itself because of a failure of the Commonwealth. The failure to prepare for the rollout of the vaccine was there. And the failure in terms of both boosters and rapid antigen tests. The Therapeutic Goods Administration approved the use of rapid antigen tests on September 28 to come into force a bit over a month later, beginning of November. When Greg Hunt made that announcement, he said this was a game changer and people would be able to get this home testing would apply and said that, declared that this was a major breakthrough, and then did nothing in between then and now to really prepare a national stockpile that was appropriate. And what a number of the Australian producers of these tests say is that they approached the Government, in a scenario that is very similar to Pfizer approaching the Government about the purchase of vaccines more than a year ago that occurred with that debacle in 2020, and they were told they just couldn't get a response. So, for many of them, they're actually exporting it overseas rather than it being provided here.
 
CULLIVER: The Prime Minister last week announced that Australia would very soon have a national stockpile of 10 million tests. Is that enough?
 
ALBANESE: Well, quite clearly, it's proving to not be enough at the moment. We have a major breakout. As you said in your introduction, some 50,000 people have been positive in the last 24 hours in addition to the many people who are currently suffering from COVID at the moment. And we know that the growth has been quite extraordinary. Normally the percentage of people earlier on who were testing positive of those people who had tests was in the single digits. It's now something in the order of one in three. So it's been a substantial shift in terms of the number of people who are being found to be positive of those people who are getting tested.
 
CULLIVER: So the positive rate in most states today have sort of been 15 and 20 per cent. And Tasmania appears that it might be 33 per cent.
 
ALBANESE: That’s right.
 
CULLIVER: But yeah, we’re seeing that leap, certainly.
 
ALBANESE: Those sort of figures were all in single digits early on. And the fact that some states are up to a third, but just about all of them I think are in double digits now, shows that people don't go out there and get tests for the sake of it. Very few people, I think, would do that. People are anxious, people are concerned, they want to get tested and they're finding great difficulty in doing so.
 
CULLIVER: Can the Government afford to make them free? For everyone that orders one, for everyone that wants one? Is that actually feasible system?
 
ALBANESE: Well, I'll tell you what, if this was people being provided in a marginal seat, the Government would have out its colour-coded spreadsheets and would make sure that that was delivered. This is a Government that have wasted billions of dollars, billions of dollars on programs. We have car parks for commuters being built where there aren’t train stations going to be. We have no limit to this Government being prepared to splash around money for political purposes. This is about healthcare. The current PCR testing regime is of course provided free. And one of the things that we know is the cost to the healthcare system, if more people contract COVID, and the reason why we test of course, it was an important part of the national plan. And the national plan indicated that when the country opened up, there would be expected to be an increase in the number of cases. And we should have had in place preparation for that. Preparation for the rollout of the boosters, preparation to make sure that testing was occur and preparation in terms of making sure that what was predicted to occur, it's not like this is a tremendous shock, it was anticipated that there will be a considerable increase, which is why state governments were so cautious about lifting border restrictions, much to the chagrin of some in the Coalition.
 
CULLIVER: Do we need to do more to stop the spread? Because at the end of the day, the massive number of cases and then people presenting with symptoms is leading to this massive backlog of need for tests, whether it’s PCR or RATs. Do we need a lockdown? Do we need stronger restrictions in some of these areas?
 
ALBANESE: Look, what we should be doing is listening to the experts. I don't think anyone wants any restrictions to be in place one day longer than is necessary. And let's hope that the sort of measures that have been imposed can be avoided. But we need to listen to the experts and we need to be very cautious in in our approach. the key to keeping the economy open Is making sure that we get the health outcomes right. And that has always been the case.
 
CULLIVER: Alright, Anthony Albanese. Appreciate your time today.
 
ALBANESE: Thanks very much.