James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this motion about the PBS and health more generally. This motion also goes to the issue of the cost of living, which I want to touch on from a health point of view and more generally.

Firstly, I was very pleased to speak in support of legislation that brought in a dramatic reduction in the copayment. This, of course, was an announcement that the coalition made in the election campaign, and it was matched by the then Labor opposition. Last year in the parliament we had the opportunity to debate and pass that legislation, and it was an excellent outcome from a cost-of-living point of view—of course, making medicines cheaper for people. Listing these medicines on the PBS is something I was very proud of, that I was a part of the government that announced that in the campaign. We have bipartisanship around that principle by virtue of both sides agreeing to put it in place, and it was just a few months ago that we passed it through the parliament. It was a great outcome for the many millions of people who benefit from that reduction in the cost of the copayment through the PBS.

I'd also like to thank the TGA for the work that they do. They've had a lot of work to do over the last couple of years in dealing with members of the public and their views on them et cetera. I think we're lucky to have the system which we have, which starts with the TGA and moves through to PBS listing. I also really commend former Minister Greg Hunt for the enormous number of medicines that were listed on the PBS during his tenure. I remember all the times we would hear in the parliament about the new medicines that were listed on the PBS and how life changing they were for people who needed access to those treatments. Of course, a medicine being on the PBS can make an enormous difference: in some cases: it can go from someone having costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to costs in the hundreds of dollars per year for treatment that they absolutely deserve to have supported through the PBS system.

During COVID, while we were in government, we deployed the rollout of telehealth, which is important to couple with the issue of prescriptions. During that time, of course, it was very difficult to access a physical consultation with a GP. This was one of the great reforms, and it would have taken years--probably decades—were it not for the challenge of COVID and therefore a greater openness for faster reform. We delivered that telehealth rollout, and I think it's worth remembering that in the universal telehealth rollout we were able to deliver 100 million telehealth consultations to 17 million people. And, of course, those were bulk billed. It was quite transformative. When it comes to access for medicines and prescriptions, that's one of the things: telehealth is such an obvious opportunity for repeat prescriptions in particular, to have a very straightforward and smooth consultation via telehealth rather than having a physical appointment. Both the risk of that during COVID and also the reality that telehealth is much more efficient and quicker meant that we didn't have the situation that we do here at times, where people, because of access issues, have haven't had prescription medicine renewed and perhaps have a period of time where they go off that medication that they should be on. That's when the great outcomes of telehealth, coupled with PBS reforms that we announced, are an excellent cost-of-living outcome for people.

The risk that we have now is, even though we have a bipartisan dramatic reduction in the co-payment, what is going to happen in the years ahead as potential indexation increases within this scheme and other healthcare costs come into play when inflation is running so hot, at nearly eight per cent. That is what I do worry about. Having dramatically reduced the co-payment, is that going to be slowly eaten away by indexation increases that will come and hit all of those that access the PBS equally as hard as the high inflation environment that we're in right now comes into play? This is why it is disingenuous in this motion to crow about some spectacular cost-of-living outcome from this. The way things are structured and the way things will happen going forward, unless there are any changes, there will be some major indexation increases coming in the future, and it's up to the government to decide whether they will absorb that rather than pass it along to consumers.

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