Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australia has a world-class health system. Despite its challenges, if you're sick or injured, you wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world. Underpinning this is a commitment to health equity. Thanks to Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, Australia is a country where the health care that you receive isn't related to your income or your status. Medicare is a cornerstone of our national identity and one of the great social reforms of our time. It ensures that health care is available according to your need, not your ability to pay. Consequently, our health at a population level is among the best in the world. This bill, the National Health Amendment (Cheaper Medicines) Bill 2025, goes to the heart of what good government should be about: making life fairer, healthier and more affordable for Australians. It reflects the values that brought me to this parliament—the belief that no-one should have to decide whether they can afford essential medicines or which one is the most important; the belief that access to affordable health care is not a privilege for the wealthy but a right for every Australian.

My career in health and in the not-for-profits has always been about health equity, because, if we are really going to maintain our health as a community, we need everyone to be able to benefit—statistically, to move the mean and the tail of health outcomes. Access to affordable primary care and affordable pharmaceuticals is vital to maintaining our health as individuals. In a former life, my title in SA Health was General Manager Population Health Equity. I was honoured to represent the Minister for Health and Ageing at the Adelaide Primary Health Network's Health Equity Awards on the weekend. If I can deviate slightly, I would like to congratulate late NEAMI, Youturn, STARRS—Survivors of Torture and Trauma—LELAN and Relationships Australia on their awards, and I thank them for their work addressing health equity in specific populations in Adelaide.

Returning to this bill, an important part of health equity is being able to afford the treatments that you need. Medication is important in treatment but also in prevention: primary prevention, preventing you becoming ill; secondary prevention, preventing a disease progressing; and tertiary prevention, minimising the impacts of the disease or illness. But there is absolutely no point in getting a prescription if you can't afford to have it filled. So much of the health management that comes from medication occurs in the community setting: people filling prescriptions at their local pharmacy and managing their health on a day-to-day basis at home.

The story of cheaper medicines in Australia is a story about fairness. It is about the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, one of the great Labor reforms of the 20th century. It is about successive governments recognising that health care is not simply a line in the budget but the foundation of a decent and inclusive society. It is about the choices we face in this chamber: do we build a system that relieves pressure on families or do we allow cost to become a barrier to care? The bill before us makes the right choice.

Managing the cost of prescription medicines is one of the most frequent concerns raised with me by older Australians, by families managing chronic conditions and by younger people struggling with unexpected illness. A survey by the Consumers Health Forum recently found that one in eight Australians have delayed or gone without filling a prescription because of cost. Think about that—more than two million Australians making the awful choice to risk their health because they simply cannot afford the medication.

This is not an abstract problem. It's a problem that shortens lives. When people skip their heart medication, they risk a heart attack. When they delay filling their asthma inhaler, they risk hospitalisation or worse. When they forgo their diabetes medication, they risk losing their eyesight or their limbs. The downstream costs to the health system are enormous, but, more importantly, the human costs are devastating. That's why this bill matters.

The National Health Amendment (Cheaper Medicines) Bill 2025 builds on the reforms introduced by the Albanese government in the last term, and it's worth doing a little history on those changes. The urgent care clinics—we have one at Marion, which has had probably around 20,000 visits since it opened in November 2023—are so important to enable people to get quick care and stay out of the hospital emergency department. There are the endometriosis clinics. We have one in Glenelg, which services metropolitan Adelaide. Again, women who have suffered with pelvic pain for their entire lives are having life-changing treatments. We had the largest increase in Medicare ever and an increase in bulk-billing, in my area, of over four per cent. At the recent election, there was a $150 million commitment to Flinders University, which they're matching, which will enable 1,300 new nurses and allied health workers to be trained and graduated every year, and 10,000 appointments to be free or low cost to patients in the community.

In 2023, we introduced the largest cut to the cost of PBS medicines in the history of the PBS. In 2022, we enabled Australians to access more free and cheaper medicines sooner through a 25 per cent reduction in the number of scripts a concessional patient must fill before the PBS safety net kicks in. Beginning in September 2023, 60-day prescriptions were introduced in three phases, meaning you can get two months of medication for the price of one for many regular medications. The prices of PBS medications were frozen in January 2025, with co-payments not rising with inflation for the first time in 25 years. Residents in Boothby have already saved over $13 million on pharmaceuticals as a result of the Albanese government's cheaper medicines agenda.

This bill takes the next step by further lowering the maximum PBS co-payment from $31.60 to $25 from January 2026. The last time medicines cost no more than $25 was 2004, a long time ago. My children were about to start school in 2004. They're now well and truly adults. This is a more than 20 per cent cut in the maximum price of PBS medicines and will save Australians collectively over $200 million every year. Four out of five PBS medicines will be cheaper as a result of this bill. For pensioners and concession card holders, the co-payment will continue to be frozen at $7.70 until 2030. Together, these measures represent one of the most significant expansions in affordable access to medicines since the PBS itself was created, and it's not an exaggeration to say that this bill will save lives.

This bill also builds on a prior Labor legacy. It's worth remembering how we got here. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme was introduced by the Chifley Labor government in 1948 against strong opposition. In fact, it took a referendum to secure the right of the Commonwealth to run it. That courage—Labor courage—means that, today, Australians pay a fraction of what people in other countries pay for essential medicines. Let us not forget that, in the United States, without universal coverage, medication that would cost $25 here can cost hundreds of dollars there. When we reflect on our world-class health system here in Australia, it is worth looking at the comparison with the United States. The US has the most expensive health system in the world and worse health outcomes at a population level than almost every other high-income country.

Australians know, if you get sick or injured, you wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world than right here in Australia with our Medicare system and our PBS. That's why, on this side of the House, we are constantly talking about Medicare and the PBS, because it really matters. The Albanese government is proudly continuing that Labor tradition. Labor are the party of Medicare and the PBS, and we are once again making the system fairer and stronger.

The health economics of this bill stack up. Every dollar we invest in affordable medicines saves many more down the track. When I studied public health, the quoted metric was that $1 of primary health prevention was the equivalent of $9 of savings at the tertiary level—that's your hospital system. It's probably only gone up. That's not to mention the cost of the burden of disease in the community in terms of lost productivity, lost personal income, the cost to social and familial connections, absenteeism, the cost to quality of life and live expectancy. Preventing one hospitalisation more than pays for the cost of lowering co-payments. Avoiding one medical emergency spares not only the patient suffering but also the strain on our hospitals and emergency departments. The long-term savings for our health system will outweigh the upfront costs. This is preventive health at its best: evidence based, targeted, and fiscally responsible.

Much as I love the data of health economics, this bill is about equity. We know that health inequality tracks closely with income inequality. Australians on lower incomes live shorter lives, experience higher rates of chronic illness and face greater barriers to care. Cheaper medicines are one of the most direct ways to reduce that gap. Older Australians are more likely to be heavy users of the health system and medications. Cheaper medicines help them to be able to remain healthy in the community, avoid hospitalisations and stay at home and out of aged care as long as possible, enjoying better quality of life and longer lives.

When we lower the cost of medicines, we are not just helping individuals; we are helping the whole community. We are ensuring that people can stay in the workforce, care for their families and participate fully in society. We are sending the message that every Australian, no matter what their income, has the right to good health. We are moving the mean and the tail of health status in our society.

The cheaper-medicines bill is part of a broader health reform agenda. This government is strengthening Medicare, expanding bulk-billing, investing in urgent care clinics and increasing support for mental health. We're tackling the social determinants of health through housing policy, through education and through support for secure, well-paid jobs, because we know that health is not just about what happens in the doctor's office; it is about the conditions in which people live, work and age. This bill complements those efforts. It's a practical, targeted and highly effective way to reduce inequality and improve health outcomes.

The National Health Amendment (Cheaper Medicines) Bill 2025 is not just another piece of legislation. It is a statement of values. It says that in Australia your health should not depend on your wealth. It says that we are a nation that looks after each other, that believes in fairness and that puts people before profit.

This bill will save lives. It will reduce pressure on families. It will reduce pressure on the hospital system. It will strengthen our health system. It will reaffirm the principle that health care is a right, not a privilege. For all these reasons, I commend the bill to the House.

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