Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to make a contribution about Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2020-2021, and cognate bill, particularly around the health appropriations. I would like to comment on some matters in the health budget. The first thing I want to talk about is something very topical in the House. We hear a lot from the government about it, and that is the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the PBS. We hear a lot, but what we hear is not generally factual from the government. It is spin and hyperbole and it's wrong. In relation to the PBS in particular, we heard some things on budget night. The government told us that the budget creates a landmark PBS new medicines funding guarantee. What the health minister said was:

The Budget creates a landmark PBS New Medicines Funding Guarantee. This Guarantee provides new funding for the listing of new medicines

That's what he said. When it comes to a minister saying the budget provides new funding, it helps if it's true, but in Senate estimates this week we heard evidence from the Department of Health that, in fact, there is no funding in the budget for the new medicines guarantee. There is no budgetary allocation at all. There is no fiscal measure with an allocation of money to the so-called 'new medicines guarantee'. The new medicines guarantee is not worth the paper it's not written on. This is an agreement with Medicines Australia for the government to list medicines on the PBS without offset. It is not a formal agreement and it is not in the budget.

But I will tell you what is in the budget. As part of the so-called 'new medicines guarantee', there are cuts to the PBS of $250 million a year. So the minister can find the opportunity to write the cuts in the budget but not the new funding in the budget. This goes to the government's track record on the PBS, and it is a lot different to what the minister for health, government ministers and backbenchers would have us believe. Every time the government lists a new medicine, they say, 'It's only because of our strong economic management that we can afford this medicine and expand the PBS.' Well, if that were the case, you would expect the PBS to be growing. The budget would be growing if they needed a strong economic measure to pay for the new listings. It would be growing, but, in fact, in 2018-19—which are the latest figures we have available because there is no Department of Health annual report yet for this year, which is another matter—the government spent less on the PBS than it did three years earlier, in 2015-16. Interestingly, in real terms, this government is spending less on the PBS than the Labor government did in 2012-13. We know that's the case, because this government's rhetoric has not lived up to the reality of the PBS, because not only are they spending less but they are spending less in part because they are very tardy when it comes to PBS listings.

In fact, the government tells us they list everything recommended by the PBAC. The Prime Minister said that in a tweet this week. He said, 'When the experts recommended, we list it.' But he doesn't; it's just not true. We know the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee has recommended 110 new medicines or expanded listings since July 2019. If the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health were to be taken at their word, if 110 have been recommended that means that 110 should have been listed. In fact, the number that has been listed is 45—45 out of 110. So we know that this government's track record when it comes to listing is nowhere near 110. If we go back further over the life of this government, we find another 25 recommendations that have not been listed in relation to the PBS. That means that there are 70 medicines that have been recommended by the experts to be listed while this government has been in office that remain unlisted on the PBS. That is to this government's shame and it is to this minister's shame. He talks the big talk when it comes to listings but his actions fall far short—70 unlisted medicines.

This has real implications for real people. I'll give you a few examples. I've met with people who have suffered migraine for 25 years—the debilitating condition of chronic migraine. I've also met with people who tell me that, when they have one of the recently invented drugs, Emgality or Ajovy, the migraine disappears.

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