Cartoons of the Week

Cathy Wilcox

Matt Golding

Morrison Government enters into multiple emergency procurement contracts for the supply of rapid antigen tests then acts surprised when its demands crowd out existing non-government customers

On 11 January 2022 AUSTENDER published five contract notices for the procurement of Rapid Antigen Tests by the Australian Dept. of Health with a combined value of $61.82 million.

All contacts began on 10 January 2022 and all end in January or early February 2022 and, these contracts are with Suretest Medical Pty Ltd, Stonestar Wholesale Pty Ltd, Hough Pharma Pty Ltd, and AM Diagnostics Pty Ltd.

All five federal government procurements were done by way of Limited Tender under Condition:10.3.b. Extreme urgency or events unforeseen. When, for reasons of extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseen by the relevant entity, the goods and services could not be obtained in time under open tender.

To meet the deadlines under these contract agreements it appears that some or all of of these companies may have failed to meet some or all previous contracts made with non-government agencies/corporations.

An ABC News article of 12 January 2022 highlighted one supplier as informing a private business customer by email that; the federal government had also "placed a mandate order and will be taking supply for their requirements out of this order arriving this week". "At this stage, we are unsure whether it will be the whole shipment or a portion"... 

Twitter on 11 January 2022 displayed a snapshot of section of an email:

While The Canberra Times on 13 January 2022 reported:

Private retailers have been told their rapid antigen test orders are being delayed and redirected by the federal government as it made an urgent tender for millions of tests.

Five tenders for rapid antigen tests worth just under $62 million were published on Tuesday by the Department of Health.

The tenders website states the condition is due to "extreme urgency or events unforeseen."

This comes after criticism from pharmacists that the government wouldn't procure extra kits for businesses under the national concession card scheme.

The Department of Health said this latest tender was not for additional rapid antigen tests and instead was a part of the broader procurement of more than 70 million rapid tests.

"Each proposal was independently assessed against consistent criteria before the departmental delegate made the decision to procure the tests," a spokesperson told NCA NewsWire.

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Rapid antigen test orders not being redirected to the Department of Health

Widespread reporting that supplies of rapid antigen test (RAT) kits are being redirected to the Commonwealth Department of Health are untrue.

Date published: 14 January 2022

Media type: Statement

Audience: General public

Widespread reporting that supplies of rapid antigen test (RAT) kits are being redirected to the Commonwealth Department of Health are untrue.

The Department of Health reaffirms that the Department has not requisitioned all RAT supplies within and entering Australia.

The Department has made purchases in accordance with Commonwealth Procurement Rules, and has not sought to place itself ahead of other commercial and retail entities.

While we are aware there are supply constraints within the market, it is expected supply will normalise over the coming weeks.

The Australian Government has secured more than 80 million RATs for delivery in January and February. State and territory governments also advise that they have placed orders for approximately 130 million RATs.

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On or about 6 January 2022 the Australian Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment entered into a $14,531.73 contract with Team Medical Supplies for supply of Rapid Antigen Tests between 6 to 20 January 2022. This contract was also limited tender but with no emergency condition attached.

In December 2021 the Australian Federal Police had entered into a $232,003.64 contract with Aspen Corporate Medical Options Pty Ltd T/as Corporate Medical Opti for supply of Rapid Antigen Tests between 23 December 2021 to 14 December 2022. This contract was open tender. 

All in all the Morrison Government has six active contracts for the purchase of rapid antigen test kits. It is disingenuous of the Dept. of Health to imply that the suppliers were not aware that the Morrison Government wanted est. 89 million test kits asap, in an import market already committed to supplying Australian states and territories with a further est.139 million test kits.

Someone was always going to miss out in a tight market and, in this case it is ordinary people, forced to pay often above-market price for a hard to find test kit in a national marketplace which has been artificially starved of product by government competition.

When & where in New South Wales can I report my rapid antigen positive test result

In NSW as at 8pm Monday, 10 January 2022 the COVID-19 test positivity rate was est. 24.06%. 

However, as total test numbers are no longer accurate due to the fact that during the Christmas-New Year period the NSW Government began to direct people to use a rapid antigen home-test kit to self-diagnose rather than attended a government or private testing centre and a significant number of persons appear to be following that direction even though NSW Health to date has no way of recoding the results of home-testing.

On 10 January the NSW government said that later in the week it will be allowing rapid antigen test (RAT) results to be voluntarily registered through the Service NSW app and these results will count towards the state's daily COVID-19 case tallies. Presumably at the same time giving access to whatever limited health services which remain available to those people required to isolate and self-manage their infection at home.

The Service NSW app can be installed at:

https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/campaign/service-nsw-mobile-app