Kara Cook (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Every Australian should have access to affordable medicine. With cheaper medicines, Australians can get the health care they need when they need it. It also eases the financial pressure so many families experience when faced with incredibly hard decisions between things like groceries and medications due to cost-of-living pressures, including in my electorate of Bonner.

That's why the Albanese Labor government is making medicines even cheaper. This week we passed the National Health Amendment (Cheaper Medicines) Bill 2025 to ensure that, from next year, PBS medicines will cost just $25. For the pensioner in Wynnum, the single parent in Mansfield and the working family in Carindale—who are also getting an urgent care clinic—every person in Bonner will save money when they fill a script. Already, residents in Bonner are benefitting; $10.5 million has been saved across 1.6 million scripts. This is direct, immediate cost-of-living relief where it's needed most. We said we would make medicines cheaper, and that is exactly what we're doing. But we're going even further by adding even more life-changing and lifesaving medicines to the PBS this week. Labor believes that your credit card balance shouldn't determine the quality of your health care. I'm proud to be part of a Labor government delivering real change and tangible outcomes for Australians.

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