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

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. How is the Albanese Labor government's cheaper medicines policy delivering more choice, lower costs and better health care for women across Australia?

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Newcastle. On more than one occasion, she has reminded me that you can't be serious about strengthening Medicare if you're not serious about supporting women's health. Women consume about 60 per cent of health services in this country, often not because they're sick but because they're women looking after their reproductive health and, by extension, supporting the reproductive decisions the broader family makes, or because they're going through menopause or perimenopause. A number of Senate inquiries in the last term of parliament lifted the lid on the years of neglect of supporting women in those areas of our healthcare system. There had not been a new oral contraceptive pill added to the PBS for more than 30 years or a new endometriosis medicine added to the PBS for more than 30 years, and there had not been a new menopause hormone treatment added for more than 20 years. This is not because they hadn't come to market; they just hadn't been added to the PBS, forcing women to pay top dollar for those new cutting-edge medicines.

We changed that. In the last several months, we've added three new contraceptive pills, three new menopause hormone treatments and two new endometriosis medicines onto the PBS, saving women millions and millions of dollars that, frankly, they shouldn't be having to shell out in the first place. For example, the endometriosis medicine, Ryeqo, was costing women $3,000 a year—that cutting-edge, highly effective treatment for endometriosis. Now, they pay barely one-tenth of that cost. But we are determined to do more because, to the Prime Minister's comments, the Australian people said 'yes' to even cheaper medicines, and so, from 1 January, the maximum cost of a script will be slashed to $25—the same rate it was all the way back in 2004.

This morning, the Prime Minister, Assistant Minister McBride and I met a young woman, Cara, who already in her early years is grappling with a number of chronic health conditions. She is on a number of medicines, and they really do put a dent in her household budget. One of those medicines is Slinda, a highly effective contraceptive pill that tens of thousands of women have been using for months and months and years and years and have been paying top dollar for. We added it to the PBS earlier this year. Before that, women were paying $320 a year for that cutting-edge medicine. From the first of January, they'll pay just $75, a three-quarter cut in the price of that medicine. The reason why we are going so hard on making medicines even cheaper is not just for the hip pocket. It's a benefit to the cost of living, but it is also so important for health. We are trying to support Australians in making sure they can fill every single script that their doctor says is important to keep them healthy.