Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. How is the Albanese Labor government delivering cheaper medicines and how are life-changing drugs being made available to Australians?

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Newcastle for her question, because she was one of dozens of Labor candidates and members who promised at the last election to cut the price of medicines for millions of Australian patients.

Tonight, we will deliver on that promise. Tonight's budget will deliver the largest ever cut to the price of medicines in the 75-year history of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, bringing the maximum co-payment for millions of general patients down from $42.50 to just $30 per script. For households that fill two or three scripts every month, and there are many of those, that will deliver a saving of as much as $300 or even $450 each and every year. That's not just good for their hip pockets at a time of enormous cost-of-living pressures; we know it's also good for their health, because almost a million Australians every year go without filling a script that their doctor has said is important for their health because they simply cannot afford it. Pharmacists tell stories of their customers coming in with a handful of prescriptions asking for advice about which script they can go without, because they can't afford to fill them all. Our delivery of that promise tonight will make that choice redundant for millions of Australians.

On top of this responsible cost-of-living relief measure, we will also continue listing life-saving and life-changing medicines onto the PBS. On the weekend, I announced four new listings of medicines like that. From next week, around 1,000 skin cancer patients will be able to access Libtayo at PBS prices, rather than $144,000 per course of treatment. More than 500 lung cancer patients will have access to new life-saving and life-changing medicines. I was especially delighted to be able to announce the listing of Crysvita, the first new treatment in decades for a rare but debilitating condition, X-linked hypophosphataemia, or XLH, which affects more than 200 Australians. I was joined at the announcement by Talia, who is 11, by Noah, who is 12, by their families and by Sandy, the President of XLH Australia, an outstanding advocate for her community. Talia has access to Crysvita on the community access program, and it has completely changed her life. Her family told us about being able to witness her deliver her first 100-metre sprint at her school, and how proud they were of that. Noah, who is 12 and an avid Crows fan, hasn't had access on the community access program, but, from next week he will be able to access this medicine that will give him an enormously different life to what he was facing before this listing. The lives of those families and more than 200 others will be profoundly changed by this listing at PBS prices, rather than $360,000, which is what this medicine would have cost without the PBS.