The federal treasurer has defended a decision to scrap pandemic leave payments and free rapid antigen tests for concession card holders despite rising COVID-19 case numbers.
As a cruise ship with more than 100 positive COVID-19 cases on board docked in Sydney on Wednesday, Jim Chalmers said the government could not afford to continue with the schemes due to budget pressures.
Dr Chalmers said both support mechanisms were designed to end at some point.
"To restart them would cost a considerable amount of money," he told reporters in Brisbane.
"We have tried to be upfront with people and say that some of these important programs that have existed in the recent past, which are designed to end in the near future, we can't afford to extend all of them."
Pandemic leave payments for infected workers who have to isolate ended on June 30 and the free rapid antigen tests for concession card holders will finish at the end of July.
The program, which provided 10 free RATs every three months, was introduced in January at the height of the first Omicron wave when the tests were in short supply.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese urged those eligible to get free tests while the scheme was still in place.
"I'd encourage concession card holders to go and get the 10 free rapid antigen tests that they're eligible for by the end of this month," he told ABC radio.
"On top of that, there are free rapid antigen tests available in aged care facilities across a range of areas."
Mr Albanese said the end date for the free tests was set by the previous coalition government.
Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said while the coalition had set the end date to both schemes, the new government needed to review the situation using health advice.
"When we made decisions during the pandemic. You looked at the conditions that were on the ground at the time," she told Sky News.
"Right now, we are seeing a new surge of a new variant of Omicron, we're seeing our hospitals overwhelmed and our health systems overwhelmed by this particular wave, which is not dissimilar to the situation that we saw in December and January."
Meanwhile, the Coral Princess cruise ship carrying more than 100 crew and passengers who have tested positive for COVID-19 has docked in Sydney.
After departing Eden on the NSW south coast, the ship with more than 2300 people on board, berthed at Circular Quay just before dawn on Wednesday.
It will remain there for a day before returning to its home port of Brisbane.
Passengers will have to record a negative RAT result before disembarking. The crew must remain on board.
The outbreak mostly involves infected crew members, with 114 in isolation on Tuesday.
Four passengers were also isolating after returning positive tests. Some 24 people got off the ship before it left Brisbane on Monday.
NSW Health believes the passengers who tested positive probably took the virus on board with them rather than becoming infected at sea.
A Princess Cruises spokesman said the crew members who tested positive were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms.
At the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, another Princess cruise liner - the Ruby Princess - had a major COVID-19 outbreak that led to 28 deaths.
LATEST 24-HOUR COVID-19 DATA:
NSW: 10,622 cases, 15 deaths, 2023 in hospital with 61 in ICU
Victoria: 11,176 cases, 20 deaths, 739 in hospital with 36 in ICU
Queensland: 7517 cases, 12 deaths, 859 in hospital with 14 in ICU
Tasmania: 1780 cases, two deaths, 106 in hospital with four in ICU
NT: 455 cases, no deaths, 43 in hospital with two in ICU
WA: 6880 cases, six deaths, 320 in hospital with 10 in ICU
SA: 4408 cases, two deaths, 245 in hospital with six in ICU
Australian Associated Press
