Scott Morrison has defended the government not ordering enough rapid antigen tests, as thousands called for them to be made free for everyone.
The prime minister claimed health officials did not advise him that RATs would need to be widely used before the outbreak of Omicron during summer.
"At no point prior to the onset of Omicron ... had any health advisory body, any chief medical officer, any health department ... or any department had a recommendation that the government should be engaged in rapid antigen testing," he told question time on Monday.
"In fact, they were not even approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration until November of last year."
It comes as a petition of more than 150,000 signatures was tabled in parliament on Monday calling for rapid antigen tests to be made free for everyone.
While the government has made the tests free for concession card holders, with product limits in place, there have been growing calls for them to be made universally available.
Australian Council of Trade Unions president Michele O'Neil, who delivered the petition to parliament, said the tests should be free to ease the financial burden on workers in frontline industries.
"RATs are a critical part of health care for our entire population and should be free and accessible for anyone who needs them," she said.
"Once again, Australia is lagging behind other developed countries in our response to the pandemic."
The government sustained heavy criticism during the Omicron wave for not ordering enough of the rapid antigen tests, with widespread shortages experienced.
The prime minister said ordering rapid antigen tests for general use sooner would have been contrary to the medical opinion, and the government had been working to limit the number of infections.
While the supply of the tests has improved, Ms O'Neil said employees who need tests regularly to attend work should not have to fork out large amounts of money.
"The costs being incurred by low paid workers who are required to buy their own tests are appalling," she said.
"The Morrison government's repeated reminders that some of those tests might be tax deductible are a callous show of disrespect for workers who are carrying us through this crisis."
Monday also saw the start of the rollout of the Novavax vaccine across the country.
The vaccine is the fifth vaccine to have been approved for use in Australia and the first that is protein-based.
A Health Department spokesman said more than 3000 GPs and pharmacies had expressed an interest in administering the vaccine.
There have been 2100 sites that have placed orders for more than 315,000 Novavax doses.
The government has ordered 51 million doses of Novavax.
While vaccination rates across the country are high, health officials have said a large number of people were waiting for the Novavax option to become available.
There were 25 fatalities from COVID-19 reported on Monday across the country.
Of those, 14 were in NSW, six in Queensland, three in South Australia and two in Victoria.
There were a further 19,680 cases nationally on Monday.
NSW recorded 6184, while there were 7104 in Victoria, 3750 in Queensland and 1027 in South Australia.
ACT had 375, while Tasmania and the NT had 408 and 757 respectively, with WA registering 62 cases.
Australian Associated Press
