Tom French (Moore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the National Health Amendment (Cheaper Medicines) Bill 2025. This bill is about fairness, dignity and ensuring that no Australian has to choose between paying the bills and filling a prescription. Labor built Medicare, Labor built the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and Labor will always act to make health care affordable. This bill continues that legacy.

Across Australia, households are under real financial strain. The cost of living is high. Families, pensioners and workers are searching for certainty in their household budgets. Medicines are a quiet but constant part of that pressure. Unlike electricity or groceries, the cost of prescriptions is often hidden from debate, but it is an unavoidable reality for millions of Australians. Pensioners may stretch their tablets to make them last longer. Parents may delay filling a child's script until after payday. Apprentices may skip doses so they can cover the rent. These choices are not trivial. They mean chronic conditions go untreated, recovery times are extended and minor illnesses can become major problems. When Australians skip medicines, they get sicker. They end up in emergency departments. They require hospital admissions that could have been avoided. They miss shifts at work, and their families carry the burden.

This creates a ripple effect. A skipped blood pressure tablet can lead to a stroke. A missed antibiotic dose can lead to sepsis. A delayed insulin refill can result in a hospital admission. Each of these outcomes is preventable and each is more expensive than the script that was skipped. That is why this bill is before the House. It is about prevention rather than crisis. It is about certainty rather than anxiety. It is about ensuring that essential health care is a right and not a privilege tied to the size of the household budget.

Let me turn to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, or the PBS, because that is the mechanism at the heart of this bill. The PBS was first established in 1948 and expanded under successive Labor governments. Its purpose is simple but profound: to ensure all Australians have affordable access to essential medicines. Under the PBS, the government subsidises the cost of medicines. Patients pay only a capped contribution, called the co-payment, and the government covers the rest. For many medicines, this subsidy is the difference between a script costing $20 to $30 at the counter and costing hundreds and sometimes even thousands of dollars if left to the open market.

The PBS is one of the great pillars of our health system. Alongside Medicare, it ensures universal access. It means a child with asthma in Joondalup can access the same inhaler as a pensioner in Kalgoorlie or a young worker in Sydney, regardless of income. But the co-payment matters. When it rises too quickly, people feel it directly. For families with multiple scripts each month, even small increases compound into a significant burden. That is why co-payment freezes and reductions are so important. To illustrate the point, consider insulin. Without the PBS, insulin can cost several hundred a month. On the PBS, the patient contribution is capped at $31.60 this year, and under this bill it will fall to $25 from 2026. For concession card holders, the cost is $7.70. That is the power of the PBS. In countries without a scheme like this, families can be forced to ration medicines or even turn to online crowdfunding to afford essential drugs. That is not the Australian way.

This bill takes several practical steps to reduce costs and expand access. First, it freezes PBS co-payments for five years. Concession card holders will pay no more than $7.70 until 2030. General patients will pay no more than $31.60 throughout 2025. This matters because, without that freeze, annual indexation would push costs up automatically year after year, regardless of wage growth. The freeze delivers certainty in an uncertain time.

Second, from 1 January, 2026, the PBS general patient co-payment will fall to $25. That is the lowest level in more than 20 years, rolling back two decades of price creep. This represents a 20 per cent cut in the maximum cost of PBS medicines, saving Australians more than $200 million every year. Four out of five PBS medicines will become cheaper under these reforms. Importantly, pharmacies will continue to have the ability to discount below the co-payment, ensuring patients benefit from competition as well as government policy.

Third, this bill strengthens price negotiations with pharmaceutical companies, ensuring taxpayers receive value for money, while patients gain timely access.

Fourth, it expands access to higher cost medicines, particularly for rare conditions where breakthrough drugs have been out of reach for too many Australians.

Finally, it removes unnecessary regulatory delays that add costs without adding value, streamlining access so patients can start treatment earlier.

Each of these measures has a single purpose: to ensure cost is not a barrier to access. Why are we doing this? It is because every dollar saved at the counter makes the difference between a prescription filled today and one on the shelf. Medicines that remain unaffordable are, in effect, medicines that remain inaccessible.

For me, this is not an abstract policy; it is personal. In 2009 I was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. From that moment, my life was defined by declining kidney function, regular medical testing and the knowledge that one day I would need life sustaining treatment. Chronic kidney disease is relentless. It brings fatigue, dietary restrictions and the constant knowledge that dialysis or a transplant will one day be necessary. It is not a condition that can be ignored. For over a decade I lived with that uncertainty. Every blood test brought new anxiety. Every medical appointment was a reminder of the limitations imposed by the illness. Dialysis loomed in the background. For many Australians, that means hours every second day in a dialysis chair, tethered to a machine, exhausted before and after treatment. It means the inability to travel freely, to work full time or to live independently.

In 2020 I received a kidney transplant. That gift came from my brother, who gave me one of his kidneys and, with it, a second chance at life. But a transplant is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of lifelong management. Patients must take immunosuppressants every day to prevent rejection. They must take antibiotics to reduce infection risk. They must attend constant monitoring, with every missed dose carrying a risk. The medicines that sustain me—tacrolimus, prednisolone, mycophenolate, pantoprazole—are all on the PBS. Without the PBS, those medicines would cost thousands of dollars a year for most families, and that is simply unaffordable. Because of the PBS, their cost is capped and manageable month after month, year after year. Without them, the transplant could have failed. Without them, my brother's extraordinary gift could have been lost. That is why I know firsthand that affordable medicine is not a matter of convenience; they are a matter of survival. That is why I am proud to support this bill—because it will ensure Australians who need medicines, whether for kidney disease or any other condition, can afford them.

Let me turn to the impact in my electorate of Moore. As at 31 July this year, the savings from the cheaper-medicines policy in Moore is already over $12 million. That is not just a number; it is direct relief in household budgets across Perth's northern suburbs. It means seniors on fixed incomes are paying less for their regular prescriptions. It means families managing chronic conditions are no longer as heavily burdened. It means workers balancing rent, mortgages and medical expenses have greater certainty. Predictable co-payments also assist pharmacists. They are both frontline health professionals and small-business operators. Predictability allows them to plan stock, invest in staff and provide better services. When communities have strong local pharmacies, health care becomes more accessible. For many people, the chemist is the first doorway into the health system. This bill strengthens that doorway by making it more affordable.

Nationally, more than 17 million Australian will benefit. The freeze on co-payments will save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars a year for families managing multiple scripts, with substantial cumulative savings. With that combined with 60-day prescriptions, Australians will save time with fewer trips to the pharmacy, fewer days off work and fewer hours spent waiting for appointments. The government has allocated $3.2 billion in the budget to fund the reforms. That is not simply expenditure; it is investment in health, in productivity and in the dignity of households.

The alternative is always more costly. When people cannot afford medicines, they delay treatment. They present in emergency wards with advanced conditions, they take longer to recover and they leave the workforce earlier. Prevention is cheaper than a crisis. That is the economic logic behind this bill. Every script filled on time is a hospital admission avoided. Every affordable dose taken is a step towards a healthier community and a stronger economy. Let me make this concrete by turning to some of the major health challenges Australia faces. For diabetes, affordable access to medicines prevents complications such as kidney failure, amputations, blindness and heart disease. Each complication avoided saves lives and reduces the cost to the health system. For cardiovascular disease, affordable blood pressure and cholesterol medicines reduce the incidence of heart attacks and strokes, which are among the leading causes of death and disability. For cancer patients, timely access to chemotherapy, pain management and adjunct medicines means better survival rates and reduced suffering. For people with mental health conditions, access to antidepressants and antipsychotics allows them to remain connected to work, study and community. For those with respiratory diseases like asthma, affordable inhalers prevent hospital admissions and reduce emergency call-outs. For people with arthritis and other chronic pain conditions, access to affordable anti-inflammatories and biologics makes the difference between mobility and immobility, between working life and disability. And for people with dementia or Parkinson's, access to the latest medicines helps maintain function and independence for longer, reducing the pressures for carers and aged care. In each of these cases, cheaper medicines do more than treat illness; they protect productivity, reduce avoidable admissions and strengthen the fabric of society.

Cheaper medicines are not just good health policy; they are good economic policy. They keep apprentices on the tools by ensuring injuries and infections are treated properly. They keep seniors active and independent, contributing to community organisations, volunteering and caring for grandchildren. They keep small-business owners at work, managing chronic conditions while continuing to employ staff and serve customers. Affordable medicines reduce avoidable hospital admissions, ease the pressure on ambulances and keep people engaged in study, work and volunteering. They also reduce reliance on disability support pensions and carer payments by keeping people healthy enough to remain in the workforce. They support parents by reducing the number of days taken off work to care for sick children. In short, healthier Australians mean a stronger economy. That is why this bill matters, not only to health policy but to national productivity.

This bill is part of a consistent Labor story. Whitlam had the vision to create Medicare. Hawke and Keating strengthened the PBS. The Howard government attempted to increase co-payments, and it was Labor that resisted and restored affordability. Today the Albanese Labor government is cutting the cost of medicines for millions of Australians. Every time Labor governs, health care becomes more affordable. Every step is about opening the door wider, not narrowing it. Every step is about fairness, dignity and security.

This bill is about fairness. It is about dignity and it is about giving Australians one less thing to worry about when they are sick.

I am here today because medicine was affordable, because my brother made a gift and because public policy helped protect that gift. I want every Australian to have the same chance.

That is what we are doing with this bill. It backs the people of Moore. It backs families across Australia. It invests in prevention, protects health and strengthens the economy. Let us pass this bill. Let's make medicines cheaper. Let us give Australians certainty and peace of mind. I commend this bill to the House.

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