Andrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. How will 60-day prescribing make medicines cheaper for Australians with ongoing health conditions? Why wasn't this policy previously introduced?

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

I thank the member for Parramatta for his question. He's an enormously talented new member of parliament, and we're very lucky indeed to have him as part of the Labor team. I'll say that he, along with all the other members of the Labor team, at the last election promised Australians cheaper medicines. Already, in just 12 months, we have delivered three stages of cheaper medicines reform, including, obviously, the largest cut to the price of medicines in the 75-year history of the PBS on 1 January—a cut that has already delivered $120 million back into the pockets of hardworking Australians.

But we know there is more to do, which is why we've accepted the advice of the medicines experts who manage the PBS to allow doctors to issue 60-day prescriptions for ongoing health conditions at the same price as a 30-day script, halving the cost of some medicines for six million Australian patients and freeing up millions of GP consults. Thirty-day scripts make a lot of sense for a one-off course of medicine for a single episode of illness, but they make no sense whatsoever for ongoing chronic health conditions, where patients are on the same medicine year in, year out and decade in, decade out—sometimes for the remainder of their life.

That is why countries that we would usually compare ourselves to, like the UK, Canada and New Zealand, and so many more have been allowing 60- or even 90-day prescriptions for a long period. That's why our policy is supported by pretty much every single patient group and every doctor group in the country.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Gippsland will cease interjecting.

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

But, as the question said, this is not new advice. It was provided by the same experts to the former government five long years ago, and they shelved it. They backed the lobby group instead of millions of hardworking Australian patients, making those patients shell out hundreds of millions of dollars that they shouldn't have had to pay.

And it seems they haven't learnt, because this week I read in the News Limited tabloids: 'Half-price medicines in jeopardy as Coalition refuses support'. They're blocking yet another sensible cost-of-living measure that will help six million Australian patients with their hip-pocket pressure and their health. This might not come as a surprise given the Leader of the Opposition's record as a health minister. Not only did he try to abolish bulk-billing—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Gippsland will leave the chamber under 94(a).

The member for Gippsland then left the chamber.

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

he also tried to jack up the price of scripts by five dollars. So maybe it's not a surprise to those hardworking patients he never supported as health minister, though it does show they've learned absolutely nothing from nine years of cuts and neglect of Medicare.