Tom French (Moore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. How is the Albanese Labor government strengthening Medicare while easing the cost of living for Australians?

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

I thank the member for Moore for his question. He certainly was good enough on 3 May to enter into this chamber! And he gave a cracker of a first speech. I'd encourage people to have a look at his speech, in which he outlined the path from being a sparky to doing law so that he could represent the members he did his apprenticeship with and the people in that profession—an honourable career path that has brought him here to this House.

One of the reasons he's in this House is our cheaper medicines policy. Our government is making medicines even cheaper for all Australians. In the last term we promised to bring down the cost of a Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme script from $42.50 to $30. We promised it, and we delivered it. This was the first reduction in the costs of medicines in eight decades. But we knew there was more to do, so we're reducing the cost again. A PBS script will cost just $25, the same cost that it was in 2004—more than 20 years ago. Now, there's an old saying: nothing comes down in price. Well, this is coming down in price.

Not just that, but we've frozen the costs of scripts for pensioners and concession card holders to just $7.70, not just for this term but until the end of the decade—real cost-of-living relief, taking pressure off Australians and backing in Medicare for the future, just as we committed to do. It comes on top of our record of delivering to strengthen Medicare: $8½ billion to expand bulk-billing. Before the last election we promised 50 Medicare urgent-care clinics. We delivered 87 and we're going to deliver another 50. And more than 1½ million Australians have visited an urgent-care clinic. Sixty-day scripts: they said all the pharmacies everywhere would be shut. It's amazing that they're still open! And next year, 1800Medicare—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

You know you only have to talk about Medicare to poke that bear. That gets them excited. Nothing makes them angrier than the support for universal health care that those on this side shows. We said we'd strengthen Medicare. We created it, and that's precisely what we are doing.