The COALition’s Latest Stuff-Up.

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It may be less virulent, but Omicron seems poised to deliver a KO punch to the Australian health service. People are queuing for hours to get the PCR tests; it takes up to five and six days to receive the bloody result and when it comes it’s often mistaken.

Pathology services and hospitals, facing a surge in COVID cases, are running understaffed. This is no doubt a surprise to NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and Scotty from Marketing, but it turns out that lab technicians, data entry operators, contact tracers, nurses, and doctors also get sick and yet are forced to deal with an avalanche of COVID. That’s when mistakes are made.

So, now with the number of new COVID cases skyrocketing, contact tracing and PCR testing go out the window. Neither Perrottet nor Scotty want to reinstate lockdowns. So the last ditch solution is quick testing.

But just as Scotty neglected vaccination, he’s also neglected quick testing. So, his idea is for Australians to spend $20 per capita every so often to buy their own quick tests, which will be available for sale … by the end of January!

Is not just that I can’t afford that. Is that even if I could, I refuse to pay for your stubbornness, recklessness, negligence, stupidity, irresponsibility, and incompetence. So, fuck you both. Pay for your shit, because I won’t.

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The folks from the Megaphone team are more polite and less hotheaded than yours truly. Read what they have to say and if you agree, sign their petition.

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The Federal Government must step up to make Rapid Antigen Tests free and accessible to all.

Far too many Australians are spending hours in massive testing queues or scrambling around multiple pharmacies looking for rapid testing kits.

Making rapid antigen tests free and accessible would take some pressure off our PCR testing capacity and family budgets.

Why is this important?

Unions and business urged Scott Morrison to make rapid antigen tests free back in October. He could have chosen to act but he did nothing.

The UK and US Governments have already acted to make rapid covid tests free and accessible to their citizens, once again Scott Morrison is leaving Australia behind.

Right now, a single test can cost up to $20, if you’re lucky enough to find a chemist that still has them. That’s $100 for a family of five. That might be small change to the Prime Minister, but it’s out of reach for many families.

When asked whether he would make rapid antigen tests free for Australians who need them, Mr Morrison suggested it wasn’t the Government’s job to fix the problem anyway.

When a journalist specifically put to Mr Morrison that “not everyone can afford Rapid Antigen Tests”, the PM glibly replied, “some people can, some people can’t”.

We've seen time and time again that when the going gets tough, Scott Morrison goes missing. We can't afford this inaction right now. It's time for the Federal Government to step up and make rapid antigen tests free and accessible.