Anika Wells, who holds the north Brisbane seat of Lilley on a razor-thin margin of 0.6 per cent, said she started the Facebook service this week to save people the trouble of hunting for RATs only to face disappointment. | Cameron Atfield
Labor’s most marginal Queensland MP has embraced RAT running in her community, publishing information on social media every night to help her constituents locate rare rapid antigen tests. Anika Wells, who holds the north Brisbane seat of Lilley on a razor-thin margin of 0.
6 per cent, said she started the Facebook service this week to save people the trouble of hunting for RATs only to face disappointment. Anika Wells has started a Facebook “RAT race” to help her constituents in north Brisbane find rapid antigen tests.The “Lilley RAT Run” lists every pharmacy and shop in her electorate that sells rapid antigen tests, and includes status updates on their stock expectations. “I am a parent of young kids and I’ve had to try to track down RATs to test as we’ve moved around, and it’s basically all people can talk about this summer,” she said. “I figured, well, I have the resources, where other people don’t, to ring around everywhere each day and publish that info for people to use. “Obviously, it’s an imperfect system because anyone who’s on Facebook groups to try to find a RAT or has tried to use the ‘Find a RAT’ website knows that even if you get intel that a store has some in stock, by the time you turn up – even six minutes later – it might be too late.” Ms Wells said she had noticed a change in mood around her electorate since the current COVID-19 wave began, adding: “The anger is white hot out there, like it’s a real barbecue stopper.”“If you look at Scott Morrison’s own admission, he talked when he went to Glasgow about using RATs over there to be able to do his work,” she said. “That was months ago, so they knew months and months ago that this was going to be something that people would need to do to be able to work, and yet they have failed to plan properly.” Pressed on RAT supplies on Tuesday, federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said testing had “always been the states’ responsibility”.“We now also have the concessional scheme for pensioners and healthcare cardholders, which includes 6.6 million Australians with access to 66 million free tests. “So you have free tests in healthcare, you have support for 6.6 million concessional cardholders, and then you have community access through pharmacies and through supermarkets.”found Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese and his Labor team were struggling to make the inroads in Queensland that they had in other states. Support for the LNP might have dropped from 42 per cent of the primary vote to 34 per cent, but Labor also saw a drop – from 30 to 26 per cent. The Greens and One Nation were the beneficiaries. The Labor state government also joined the RAT attack, with Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath taking aim at the Prime Minister over an advertisement released last week by the Commonwealth. The ad points out that there were “over 70 million tests for everyone” at testing facilities across the country.“In fact, it’s due tomorrow [Wednesday] and only 100,000 are coming to us tomorrow. Fifty thousand of those are point-of-care tests that are not really suitable for our public testing clinics. “I think those ads are very self-serving. They are highly political, and it’s about Morrison positioning himself to look good in the lead-up to an election.” A spokesman for Mr Hunt said the ad was a public health message to ensure Australians knew where they could access the tests.
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