Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media on Wednesday (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)

Long before the government’s failure to source rapid antigen tests, so cruelly exposed over the past six weeks, it was boasting about them.

Greg Hunt called a media conference last September to proudly announce that the Therapeutic Goods Administration “at my request” had approved home testing using RATs from November.

The United States had approved home testing in December 2020; the UK in January 2021. As has been usual throughout the pandemic, the TGA has dragged its feet on approvals. At the time its head, John Skerritt, said that was because the government had prevented it from approving tests any earlier: “We can’t formally make an approval decision until we get a signal from the government. It’s a decision for the government.”

At the same time as Morrison and Hunt were delaying home testing, they were refusing to consider sourcing the tests. We now know the Australian Medical Association urged the government to develop a plan to source RATs but was rebuffed.

So the government refused for nearly a year to allow home testing, then refused to try to procure home tests. Typically, it has refused to accept responsibility — Morrison has blamed the states, and the Omicron variant, for the near-absence of RATs from the community. Yesterday he said, in yet another epically long and pointless monologue at a media conference, that he understood people’s unhappiness at enduring “a frustrating and difficult and highly concerning summer”. Nothing to do with him, though.

But while Morrison has been refusing any responsibility for his decisions to delay and ignore home testing, his bureaucrats have been busy.

Last week the Health Department went to the market to source more than $60 million worth of tests. It also began redirecting tests to the “national stockpile”. Claims that orders for tests were being redirected to the government, however, were denied by Health. Last week it issued a statement that “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.”

Note the “all”. The government’s denial was merely that it was not seizing every test kit both within and coming into Australia. Of course it isn’t — that would be physically impossible.

Yesterday Morrison was more emphatic: “There have been some absurd allegations made over the, particularly over the summer, the allegations that the Commonwealth has redirected supplies of rapid antigen tests, or indeed that the Commonwealth has impounded private supplies or sought to frustrate private supplies. None of this is true. I have no idea where that’s coming from and you know, it just floats around on social media.”

The only problem was, not long afterwards, PPE supplier Werko was emailing customers who’d ordered tests, and posting on its website: “If you ordered the Orawell Saliva Test Kits: the saliva tests were prioritised to the government’s national stockpile and were pulled from under our nose — without prior notice — causing major delays. As a result, all those who have placed an order for these kits will have their orders dispatched on the 22nd of Jan.”

Admitting that the government is requisitioning testing supplies already ordered by others would confirm just how badly it had bungled the issuing of home testing — leaving serial liar Morrison in a quandary about what to lie about: how the government had failed on testing, or how it was now trying to make up for that failure.

Except the government redirecting home testing purchases to itself is the least worst thing to do given the shortage created by its own failures. Sectors such as aged care urgently, desperately, need RATs to enable workers deemed close contacts to continue working while minimising the risk of infecting the vulnerable.

The aged care sector is in such a state of crisis that it is calling on the government to send soldiers into nursing homes to help make up for the shortfall in staff. At the moment there aren’t enough RATs in the national stockpile to provide to aged care providers at all facilities, with those facing outbreaks prioritised.

It’s a diabolical mess.

As usual for Morrison, however, the focus is on evading responsibility and lying to avoid the political consequences of his own failures.

Have you had trouble sourcing a rapid antigen test? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name if you would like to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say column. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.