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

Last night, our plan to make medicines cheaper passed the parliament, cutting the cost of a PBS script from $30 down to just $25. That follows up from what we did in our first term to cut it from $42 down to $30. Had we not done that, if we'd continued the policy that was in place under the former government, those costs today would have been more than $50. So in fact we have cut the cost of medicines by half for people who need them, many of whom, of course, will need multiple scripts. On top of that, we have 60-day dispensing, something that those opposite said would lead to massive closures of pharmacies. We wouldn't be able to find them anywhere around Australia—what nonsense! It's another example of their speciality of scare campaigns rather than engaging in good policy. We've also frozen the cost at just $7.70 until the end of the decade for concession card holders, making an enormous difference. At the last election we promised to do all this, and now we have delivered on this promise, something that makes an enormous difference to communities that we represent, easing cost-of-living pressures right across the country.

But it also says something about the way that we do policy. We consulted with the Pharmacy Guild, we consulted with senior Australians in particular and we consulted with people in the health sector about what was needed—a nation committed to Medicare, committed to the Australian idea that, when you get sick, you get the care that you need, not because of your bank balance but because you have this little piece of green and gold plastic—

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