Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this legislation. It's a great privilege to be able to speak on the National Health Amendment (Cheaper Medicines) Bill 2025. When we think practically about this legislation, I think about it through the lens of the lived reality of so many Australians right now. So many Australians today are struggling with the financial pressure of finding the balance between the cost of their housing, being in a position to afford either their mortgage or their rent and going to the supermarket and being able to fill up a basket of groceries and make choices about whether they're going to be able to pay at the ATM. Then they go on and, of course, make other tough financial decisions about car payments, petrol and essential items, like medicines and going to the doctor. At every point along that transaction journey, people are faced with acute choices about trade-offs and priorities in their life. Nobody ever wants to face a moment in their life where the choice is between their health and wellbeing, the longevity of their life and the fullness of their capacity from being able to afford access to medicines and health care. That is always the basis on which this parliament is seeking to debate health legislation—how we empower people to take agency and responsibility for their health and wellbeing and how we find the right balance so that we can make sure that no Australian ever faces that tough choice.

But there is no point in pretending that, as part of the ongoing conversation around what is sustainable for the future of the country, there is not always tension in this debate, because we know there are medicines that don't get listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Not every medicine that's available is listed by the current government, despite their commentary, nor has every drug been listed by every previous government in the past and nor will every treatment option in the future be listed. There are the realities of the costs and the innovative impacts and experimental nature that they may have. So we always take a sober, balanced approach to say to Australians, 'We need to make sure that we're meeting you to achieve the best outcome we can achieve for every Australian to advance Australia fair'—for want of a better phrase, without wanting to be twee about it.

The current government has said that that price is going to be $25 per script to be able to achieve the best outcome to maximise choice and for people to be able to get access to the medicines they need to manage conditions. The demand is real. Nobody's disputing this. We're living longer, healthier, happier lives. In so many ways, that's a beautiful and wonderful thing. Only a few generations ago, people might have been taken out by conditions which can now be managed as chronic conditions with support or access to innovative medicines that simply didn't exist only years ago. But the PBS comes at a cost, and we want to support Australians to manage that cost.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which is part of a bulk-purchasing arrangement of government, helps millions of Australians every single year afford the medicines they need, where they can go to a simple pharmacy after they've seen their doctor and get a medication dispensed. They can get the support and treatment they need and meet it with a copayment so that they can get the assistance that they need to manage their own care pathway. It's about working with pharmacies, with pharmacists, with their doctors and in particular through primary health care, not just so we get the best health outcomes for patients, though we do manage the best care pathways for patients, but also to reduce the overall cost for the health system and stop the risk over time that people graduate up to the tertiary system and find themselves in hospital.

We all win when people take responsibility for their lives and their healthcare pathways and get the best outcome. That's why the coalition has always been such a strong supporter of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. I remember the time I was last in parliament. One of the most tragic things was when, during the previous terms of Labor governments, they deprioritised listings of medications on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme because they wanted to prioritise other avenues of the health system to do things like boost the pathways for unions to tax their take at the expense of access to medicines for vulnerable Australians. One of the things that we were proudest to do over that period from 2013 through to 2022 was to increase the volume of medications, often for rarer conditions, for people who were simply left behind by previous Labor governments—rarer conditions that often led, tragically, to a death sentence. There were particular types of cancers or rarer conditions that weren't traditionally part of the mainstream.

We all understand the importance of things like cholesterol medication and other types of statins and the like that are often used by Australians on an everyday basis. But those rarer conditions can often mean not just the slow corrosion of somebody's wellbeing but the very difference between life and death. When those medications are able to be listed because we have a strong economy, a balance sheet and, more importantly, a government that understands that you have the capacity to provide the health services that Australians on the margins need when you have those things in alignment, you build a better nation.

This legislation is before the parliament, and, of course, when it gets voted upon—and it will pass—it will be a moment where we reduce the price to access a script to $25. It will mean that it will reduce the cost-of-living pressure for millions of Australians so they will be able to fill out their scripts. It will mean that they will find it easier in an environment where they will face less pressure on their cost-of-living choices in the short term, but, because real wages, once adjusted for inflation, have not risen for nearly 15 years, so many Australians will still not be getting further ahead. This is just an adjustment to reflect the reality that Australians are not getting ahead, no matter how much and how hard they work.

Yes, it gives hope. But it does not give the long-term, sustainable hope that Australians need so that we can look forward to the future with confidence. The only basis you will have long-term hope for the future is if we have a change of government where we get a reckless spend-athon government off the government benches and you see the return of a coalition government that is prudent, responsible and prioritises putting service delivery for Australians first, that makes long-term sustainability of the budget its priority and that puts Australia in a position of strength and economic growth so that we can deliver the dividends to Australians to be able to afford the access to health and education services—and that includes the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme—so that those who are marginalised, vulnerable or in a situation of need are in a position to be able to afford the health services that they so desperately need.

Sitting behind any conversation around access to medicines are so many small businesses. When I go around the electorate of Goldstein, and I talk to many of the community pharmacies in Goldstein, what I hear are the aspirations of so many small businesses. Like all small businesses in the electorate and, of course, across Australia, they're facing real and significant challenges in the current economic environment. They face problems around skills and access to labour. They face challenges around cashflow and, of course, they pay energy bills too. Rising energy costs are a challenge. Of course, regulation and tax are challenges too.

Alright, some pharmacists are doing okay because they studied hard and they put themselves in a position to be able to earn a good income, but that doesn't change the fact that they've made a huge investment in themselves, and, often, they're the very basis of their business. Once you remove them, that community pharmacy can disappear. They're providing a good service not just for themselves but for the community as well. The expectation, increasingly, is that they're providing not just a service on a commercial basis but a public service for the rest of the community, particularly through primary care.

Despite the boasts of the Prime Minister, who comes in here occasionally with his Medicare card and says, 'No matter who you are in this country, no matter where you go, you never need anything more than that', I'm afraid the lived reality of Australians in just about every corner of this nation is that, if you turn up to a doctor's GP clinic at the moment, you definitely need your Medicare card and your credit card—certainly, in the electorate of Goldstein, that's the reality. Therefore, so many people turn to their community pharmacy and say, 'Is there a way you can provide me with assistance and support?' Increasingly, pharmacies are on the frontline of primary-care need. What they need, more than anything else, is certainty and clarity for their long-term sustainability so that they can invest in their own future.

There are people like Simon Rankin from the Sandy pharmacy in Sandringham. He's been a long-term provider in the community and does an amazing job. There are people like Leah Bartolotta at Hampton Discount Chemist, Lili and Aviezer Jaworowski at Dendy Village Pharmacy, Rebecca Nguyen at the Chemist Warehouse in Brighton, Eric Upton at East Brighton Pharmacy, or Simon Kenny and Stephen Morrin at Direct Chemist Outlet in Elsternwick. They've made a huge investment in their own future. There are people like Leah Bartolotta and Damien Gance from the Chemist Warehouse in Elsternwick, Rebecca Tran Nguyen, who's at the Chemist Warehouse in Cheltenham, David Wong at McKinnon Pharmacy & Post Office or Geoffrey Kirschner at Ormond Amcal Pharmacy. There's Malcolm Cosgriff and David Szylit at Beaumaris Pharmacy; Andre Beck at Bayside Pharmacy; Yu-Chun Shao from Gardenvale Pharmacy; Genya and Leon Fleischer from Priceline Pharmacy in Caulfield, Paul Krassaris, who's from Seaview Pharmacy in Beaumaris; Lysbeth and Francis Fong from Bentleigh Centre Pharmacy; Alexander Profus and Richard Needleman from Bentleigh Corner Pharmacy; Steve Zakkas, Azman Haroon and John Huynh from Chemist Warehouse in Bentleigh; Steven Christopoulos and Conor McAntee from Priceline Pharmacy in Bentleigh; Ke Ma, Chaoqun Wang and Bin Zhao from Priceline Pharmacy in Bentleigh East; Paul Pham from Nelson Pharmacy in Brighton East; Allan Bernhart from Hawthorn Road Pharmacy in East Brighton; and Michael Shapp from Soul Patterson Chemist in Elsternwick.

What you hear about from these small businesses in the electorate is about people who are backing themselves and investing in the growth of their community and, more importantly, for the primary care services in their community. And, of course, they're also new Australian success stories in many cases. They're people who have been part of a migration, whether it is the first or second generation, who have invested in themselves and for the future of their community and their success. They just want to get ahead and support others. We should be wishing and willing them on. I would have thought that this parliament would want to provide them with the clarity and certainty to be able to do so, just like patients need certainty from this parliament too.

When I think about the benefits of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, they go so much to older patients in our community as well. So many pensioners I talk to in Goldstein talk increasingly about the trade-offs they are making around access to medicines as part of their broader challenge of cost-of-living pressure, particularly in managing chronic conditions and increasingly managing the realities of co-morbidities across multiple stages of life when people are taking multiple medications, which only increases as people get older.

Many years ago, the Productivity Commission did a study which looked at this and assessed that around a third of a person's entire health expenditure occurs in the last few stages of their life. It's no surprise. People need support. They need care, and they need care within their community. A community pharmacy provides that care and support. But it can only do so if it has clarity and certainty to provide the support that the community needs, to run a viable business, to build the relationships with the patients they so desperately need and, of course, to be affordable and accessible as part of a long-term sustainable solution for our country. The only way we're going to achieve that is if we have a change of government that seeks to achieve the best interests of economic growth and long-term sustainable budget management to deliver the future success of this great nation.

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