Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I was pleased yesterday to read a press release from the shadow health minister. I thought that the party that have been obsessed with saying no to everything were about to have a kumbaya moment and say something positive. It began:

The Coalition strongly supports Australians having access to cheaper medicines.

Excellent! Then it went on to say in the very next sentence:

We support 60-day dispensing.

I thought: 'This is going well. That's the way.' Then I read the next word: 'However, even though we support it all, we're against it. And what we'll do is we'll put a disallowance motion in the Senate. We'll hold a press conference with all the drama—the Nats and the Libs out there—and we're going to knock it over tomorrow.' Do you know what they did in the Senate earlier today? They lost six votes trying to block the vote being held on their motion. Then, when that all failed, they withdrew the moving of the motion. Now it sits on the Notice Paper as an orphan. No-one's moving it. No-one's associated with it. What a farce!

See this speech in context