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News Article

Pay for a Pandemic

Kiara Grace

we’re in another stage / we have to live with this / this virus / it’s a test / someone's always going to pay for it

Creative

An excerpt from 'Pay for a Pandemic', a found poem, with a beige-orange gradient background. The tex

Source material:

Transcript of ‘Scott Morrison confirms that RAT kits will not be free to the public’ from 7NEWS Australia

Well, we already make them free to everyone who is required to have one. Anyone who has to have a rapid antigen test, one is provided free. And of course, PCR tests where one is provided free as well. They’re also tax-deductible. But we’re in another stage of this pandemic now where we can’t just go around and make everything free. We have to live with this virus. This is[n’t] a medicine, it’s a test, 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 for those who are pensioners and others and we’ll be working through those issues. I’m heading down to Canberra today to do further work on that. We hope to be in a position to be able to finalise those arrangements this week as I had already flagged some weeks ago.

Quotes from ‘Scott Morrison says he won't 'undercut' businesses by funding free rapid antigen COVID-19 tests’ from ABC News

Scott Morrison: "We're now at 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 will be you."

‘Mr Morrison responded that Mr Albanese was "always full of complaints after the fact".

‘He said businesses needed confidence they would not be "undercut" by free testing regimes.

‘"By making that policy very, very clear, then that means the private market, whether it's in the big warehouse pharmacies or the other pharmacies or the supermarkets, they can now go and stock their shelves with confidence that they won't be undercut by the government," Mr Morrison said.’