Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is not complete rubbish. Exposure drafts have been released that show that the US is proposing measures that would delay the availability of lower priced generic medicines—enhancing the monopolies of the pharmaceutical companies. These proposals exceed the patent obligations of the World Trade Organization and far exceed the standards in other US free trade agreements, including the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement and the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement. I will quite happily provide the leaked medicines transparency annexe to the member if he has not seen it yet. The leaked medicines transparency annexe will give more rights to pharmaceutical companies and restrict the ways in which government can regulate the wholesale price of medicines and subsidise retail prices.

We have bills, such as the one we have got before us, and legislation which purports and quite properly wants to make it easier for us to get generic and biosimilar medicines into the system to reduce the cost to the taxpayer. But at the same time we are negotiating an agreement which is going to undermine our ability to ensure that these generics get onto the market. I am amazed that the members are contesting that this is the case. Even the Republican Party in the Congress of the United States is acknowledging that there are many aspects in this Trans-Pacific Partnership that are problematic. I would say that for Australia there is no part of that agreement that is more problematic than that that is relating to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. We need to have a very sophisticated conversation about this. The minister, who has been involved in negotiating this agreement, quite clearly is well and truly aware of the challenge of it.

Opposition members interjecting—

The member has asked if anyone had seen it. We would love to see it. What we are relying on is leaked parts of this document because of the secrecy—

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