Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I grew up out there so I do not have anything to prove.

Government members interjecting—

I have got the backbench and even the front bench going now. I drop my hook in the water and they hop out like salmon. It does not take much. But how will rural South Australia fare under these changes to pharmacies? Laura Tingle had a good article in TheFinancial Review

Mr Taylor interjecting—

You might want to listen to this, so you can refer to it in your speech. Her 28 April 2015 article is titled, 'Sussan Ley says pharmacy changes may mean drugs are costlier in rural Australia'. That is the headline, and the starting line is:

Patients in rural and regional Australia may have to pay more for medicines than their city counterparts if plans to deregulate the pharmaceutical co-payment go ahead … Sussan Ley says.

Laura Tingle is a very respected journalist, and The Australian Financial Review is no socialist rag. It is a paper that represents the top end of town, and we have there an article talking about how the price of medicines might be higher in rural Australia than they are in the city because of these changes. That should be of concern. Whether it is true or not could be flushed out. The evidence could be brought before a Senate committee, but we will not see that happen under this government. We will not see the scrutiny of this opaque deal, so we will not truly know what the consequences will be, and that is what the member for Hume and others do not want to see. They do not want scrutiny of their deals. They do not want scrutiny of the fact that they are basically ripping $6.6 billion worth of savings out of health sector and putting it into general revenue. That is really what they are doing—tearing it out. And we have seen it with their cuts—$60 billion worth of cuts. We have seen them hack into the rebates that doctors get and the co-payment of $8 by stealth. We know that will happen and that bulk-billing rates will fall. It will hurt country people most of all, and we know that so many of the health determinants in this country tragically are determined by where you live.

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