Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

Wise words from a previous health minister. Even this health spokesperson said, late last year:

… the opposition would be kidding itself if it did not recognise there were challenges in the budget and that savings needed to be found. There is no area that is going to be exempt.

So the health spokesperson has recognised what every single health minister knows—that is that it is in the interests of patients to make the system as sustainable as possible.

Earlier today, we had the member for Sydney—another health minister—talking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, rather uncomfortably, because I do not think a lot of her Labor unions actually like it. She said that Australians are very determined to protect the PBS. You want to make sure that the PBS, the price of medicines, is sacrosanct in the TPP. I can assure her that it is. I had lots of conversations with the minister for trade and the Prime Minister to make sure that is the case. The member for Sydney talked about new medicines. Hello! Access to new medicines is not possible in a health system that is not sustainable. If you look at where the spends are across the system, doesn't it make sense to look at how we can make the necessary investment and savings so we can have access to new medicines.

The member for Ballarat quite rightly mentioned melanoma, a disease we have far too much of in Australia. It is treated by a drug called Keytruda, an innovative immunotherapy. We would not have been able to list Keytruda, at $100,000 a patient, if we had a system whose costs were spiralling out of control, if we did not have to make the tough decisions, if we did not have to make this saves that we have announced.

By the way, where are those saves going? Into the Medical Research Future Fund—not where Labor put them, into the budget bottom line—because we know that the cures for cancer, the health of all Australians, depends on these innovative techniques and treatments. I mentioned the drug Keytruda. I should also mention the $1 billion investment the government has made in curing hepatitis C. We are the only jurisdiction in the world to say, 'Everybody, everywhere, we want you to have access to treatments.' That is pretty much 12 weeks of tablets, not the awful interferon based hospital therapies that made so many people so unwell. Without fear or favour wherever you are, in the prison population or homeless on the street, you should have access to this. It is $1 billion spent in MYEFO. Everyone talks about the saves. Sometimes it is a good idea to look at where we spend the money and how we invest it for the health of all Australians, how we keep the dollar as close as possible to the patient to make the most difference in the patient's life.

Stop scaremongering, Labor Party. Have a sensible debate and talk about what you are going to do, what your policy might be. We had no ideas in 2015; we really need some good ones from you in 2016.

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