SA Premier seeks missing RAT inquiry

SOUTH Australian Premier, Steven Marshall, is calling for an inquiry into claims that supplies of COVID-19 rapid antigen test kits bound for retailers in the State have been claimed by interstate Governments.

Speaking to Adelaide radio station, FIVEaa, this morning Marshall said he would write to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) today about the issue.

“South Australians have every right to be outraged if these allegations are correct, he said.

“Any interference in the supply of RATs for SA is completely and utterly unacceptable.

“We contacted governments interstate, they certainly don’t accept that they have jumped the queue but we think there needs to be an independent investigation.”

Marshall said the ACCC was the appropriate body to review the allegations.

The Premier’s comments followed a report in Adelaide’s The Advertiser stating that “hundreds of thousands of RATs bound for South Australia have gone missing, with interstate governments accused of requisitioning them” before they could be shipped to the State.

Pharmacy Guild of Australia South Australian Branch President, Nick Panayiaris, told the paper that pharmacies were seeing orders for the tests disappear.

“One outlet had a $480,000 RAT confirmed order put off today,” he said.

“These disappearing orders are ‘appearing’ at Government media conferences [around the country] each day as ‘Oh, we have just received one million RATs’.

“One supplier I talked to today has lost three flights entirely full of RATs.

“One supplier said entire planeloads are being bought so that governments are not seen to be requisitioning [supplies] from individual suppliers.”

Panayiaris added that pharmacies in the State have been inundated with calls about RATs, with a number of stores “having to take their phones off the hook to provide basic services like dispensing”.

The Advertiser also quoted a letter sent to a South Australian retailer by a Sydney-based wholesaler stating an order worth $1.3 million had been seized.

“It wasn’t that we were ignoring you, it was a matter of the Government taking all our focus and commandeering our stock that arrived since we put out the offer to you re RAT kits,” the wholesaler said.