The federal treasurer has defended scrapping 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 the schemes due to budget pressures.
Dr Chalmers said both support mechanisms were designed to end eventually.
"To restart them would cost a considerable amount of money," he said.
"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, noting the end date was set by the previous 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," she said.
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 before departing for its home port of Brisbane about 9pm.
Passengers were required to self-administer rapid antigen tests before disembarking in Sydney and Eden.
Carnival Australia president Marguerite Fitzgerald said passengers were asked to attest they had returned a negative result, but those results weren't verified.
"That is happening every day in Australia ... it really is the community standard," Ms Fitzgerald said, noting NSW Health agreed with the self-administrations of tests.
One 79-year-old woman on board took a photo of her negative RAT result before disembarking, which she showed to her daughter Jo when the pair caught up for lunch in Sydney.
"She's really happy just to be back on a cruise," Jo told AAP shortly after hugging her masked mother goodbye at the Circular Quay cruise terminal on Wednesday afternoon.
One couple who travelled from Adelaide to Brisbane to board the cruise said they were satisfied with the precautions being taken, after deciding to proceed with the trip despite being offered the chance to bail before boarding their flight north.
Ms Fitzgerald said about 10 passengers were stopped from disembarking in Sydney after returning a positive test, joining four others in isolation.
The number of crew who have tested positive is around the same as the 114 reported by Queensland Health earlier this week, Ms Fitzgerald said.
NSW Health believes the passengers who tested positive probably took the virus on board with them rather than becoming infected at sea.
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.
Ms Fitzgerald said a lot has been learned since then.
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
ACT: 1345 cases, no deaths, 142 in hospital with four in ICU
