Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie has fired up over rapid antigen test manufacturing in Australia, accusing the federal government of leaving too much responsibility to the states.
The outspoken senator quizzed officials from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet at a senate inquiry investigating Australia’s Covid response on Wednesday.
She pointed to the Victorian government’s announcement that a RAT manufacturing hub would be established in Box Hill to produce about three million tests a month from July 2022.
“Why is it always the states who have to figure this out and it’s the federal government who throws its hands up and says it’s all too hard, not my job mate,” Senator Lambie asked.
Deputy secretary of social policy Alison Frame said numerous examples had been provided of the federal government supporting RAT and Covid medical responses.
She said the commonwealth was directly procuring RATs from an Indigenous producer in western Sydney.
Senator Lambie earlier accused the federal government of not doing enough to support businesses wanting to manufacture RATs in Australia.
“Is there anyone manufacturing RATs here in Australia from start to finish? That’s what I want to know,” she asked.
“From complete woe to go manufacturing domestically in Australia, to my knowledge there’s not any producers right now that do that entire componentry in Australia,” said Kristen Tilley, the first assistant secretary for the office of supply chain resilience.
Senator Lambie then pointed to comments from the Therapeutic Goods Administration that it was waiting for a signal from the federal government before approving at-home tests in September last year.
“Why wasn’t the Australian government more proactive about getting these tests approved last year?” Senator Lambie asked.
“We knew we were opening up in Octoxjmtzywber and November … we didn’t get ourselves ready to live with Covid at all.”
Ms Frame said: “The TGA approved self-tests in October last year and they had been used prior to that for trial purposes in residential aged care facilities.”
