Gordon Reid (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. How are medicines listed on the PBS helping to improve the lives of Australians? Why is the government so determined to make PBS medicines cheaper for Australians, and why is this necessary?

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

It is so terrific to see the member for Robertson back in this chamber. He's a great local member, now down that end of the chamber, and he's also a terrific source of advice for those of us in the health portfolio. He knows that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the PBS, is one of the core pillars of Australia's world-leading healthcare system. Established by yet another Labor government almost 80 years ago, it delivers Australians affordable access to the world's best medicines, and our government has been working hard to make those medicines even more affordable. Four waves of cheaper medicines policies in the last term of parliament have already delivered Australians a saving of about $1½ billion, but those huge savings don't account for the benefits of the almost 350 new listings on the PBS that our government has made—including, for example, the eight women's health drugs that I talked about in yesterday's question time.

Earlier this month we also expanded access to the life-saving wonder drug Trikafta. For the first time, people with cystic fibrosis who have rare and ultrarare mutations will have access to that drug. One of those hundreds of patients is Nathan Charles, who joined the member for Robertson, the cystic fibrosis community and me in Sydney to announce this listing. Nathan was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis as a little infant, and his mum was told that she shouldn't expect him to survive childhood. Not only did he survive; he also went on to represent Australia as part of the Wallabies—the only person on the planet who has played contact sport at an elite level with cystic fibrosis.

Without PBS listing Trikafta costs about $250,000 a year. I have spoken to families—I think the member for Robertson was there—who had to remortgage their house to give their sick kids access to that drug. Many others, obviously, didn't have that opportunity, and they just had to go without. Now Nathan and hundreds of patients like him will get access to this drug not for $250,000 but for $31 a script. Next year that price will come down even further, to just $25 a script, if the bill that I introduced to the parliament this morning passes over the course of the coming few weeks.

When we first listed Trikafta three years ago Australia was a relative late-comer to this wonder drug. But, with this, the fourth expansion of the listing we've already made in just three years, Australia is now the global leader in equity of access to this drug for the cystic fibrosis community. That is the value of Australia's PBS, and that is why we will never give it up.