Mark Butler's recent appearances (OpenAustralia.org)
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language: en-gb
creator: OpenAustralia.org, mprss.php script
date: 2026-02-05T22:05:57+00:00
items: Medicare | Questions without Notice | House debates
items: Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025; Third Reading | Bills | House debates
items: Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025; Consideration in Detail | Bills | House debates
items: Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
items: Bolkus, Hon. Nick | Condolences | House debates
items: National Disability Insurance Scheme | Questions without Notice | House debates
items: Health Care | Questions without Notice | House debates
items: Aged Care | Questions without Notice | House debates
items: Bondi Beach Attack Victims | Condolences | House debates
items: Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme | Questions without Notice | House debates

Medicare | Questions without Notice | House debates
type: item
description: Thank you to the member for Bendigo for her question and for being such a Medicare champion. The hard work that she has done promoting our Strengthening Medicare agenda in her community means...
encoded: Thank you to the member for Bendigo for her question and for being such a Medicare champion. The hard work that she has done promoting our Strengthening Medicare agenda in her community means that the people of Bendigo have enjoyed some of the best results in the country. After we tripled the bulk-billing incentives for pensioners, concession card holders and children back in 2023, bulk-billing in Bendigo went up by 10 per cent, the third-best result of any electorate in this country, and our latest investments are proving just as successful in her community. Before November, fewer than one in five general practices in Bendigo bulk-billed all of their patients all of the time. Today that figure is three in five, more than tripled in just three months. The Bendigo Urgent Care Clinic that the member talks about has also seen almost 20,000 members of her community since it opened in late 2024, all free of charge, and about half of them indicate that, if the clinic wasn't available, they would have gone to the local hospital, the Bendigo hospital emergency department. As a result, semi-urgent and non-urgent presentations to the Bendigo emergency department, what they call category 4 and category five 5 presentations, are down almost 10 per cent at that hospital, freeing up the ED staff to focus on the lifetime emergencies that they were trained for and that hospitals were built for. As the Prime Minister has said, last week he struck an historic agreement with premiers and chief ministers to provide record support to our public hospitals, 750 of them, including the Bendigo hospital, tripling the additional support that hardworking hospitals would receive compared to the agreement that they had struck under Scott Morrison. But that's on top of all of these investments to strengthen Medicare, to deliver high-quality, affordable care to people in their own community, to take pressure off hospitals like the one at Bendigo by rebuilding general practice, by driving up bulk-b…
date: 2026-02-05T14:38:00+00:00

Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025; Third Reading | Bills | House debates
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description: by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time.
encoded: by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time.
date: 2026-02-05T11:47:00+00:00

Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025; Consideration in Detail | Bills | House debates
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description: I thank the member for Mackellar for those remarks and also her engagement on this bill and other bills—particularly in the health portfolio, given her background. She raises some issues...
encoded: I thank the member for Mackellar for those remarks and also her engagement on this bill and other bills—particularly in the health portfolio, given her background. She raises some issues that are being ventilated in the Senate committee inquiry in relation to this bill, which is still underway; the committee hasn't yet reported. I reiterate what I said in response to the member for Mallee's amendments—that this change, that's been endorsed by the board and will be the subject of enabling legislation at state and territory level, has been the subject of nine years of work, with patient safety right at the core of that work. I'm glad to hear the member for Mackellar's comments around the national medicines record that I announced last week. 'Prescriber shopping', which was the term the member for Mackellar used, has become much more of a challenge in a telehealth environment. Some tragic cases, one in particular, led to the government making that announcement last week to ensure all prescribers—because that was a question of the number of doctors prescribing—have access to and actually use the records. As I said in response to the member for Mallee's amendments, we've made the announcement. There will now be a process of consultation to design the national medicines record, and we will obviously take account of any change to the prescribing population as we go forward. The other comments, though, that the member for Mackellar makes about the submissions that the college and the AMA have made to the Senate committee, we will take into consideration if this bill passes the House and then moves to the other place after the committee has reported. I want to emphasise again that both doctors' groups were heavily involved in that consultation. Indeed, both of them have pointed to that consultation as being a very high standard compared to another consultation that is under way right now that they're not as happy about. But I also want to say the prescribing rights of this p…
date: 2026-02-05T11:43:00+00:00

Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025; Consideration in Detail | Bills | House debates
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description: As I indicated, we won't be supporting this amendment. The effect of the amendment would really be to ensure that this particular group of registered nurses, who are now able to seek this...
encoded: As I indicated, we won't be supporting this amendment. The effect of the amendment would really be to ensure that this particular group of registered nurses, who are now able to seek this endorsement through changes made by the board and will now be able to prescribe as state and territory parliaments change their legislation, which they have all committed to, will not be able to access the PBS. It would effectively make medicines more expensive for patients who had those medicines prescribed under changes that have already been decided on by the board and that are in the process of being made by state and territory parliaments. This legislation will simply ensure that those patients are able to pay PBS prices, not the market prices that the National Party would have them pay under their amendment. I also indicate—and I think I said it in my summing up—that this has been the subject of almost a decade of consultation and modelling by the nurses' board. All the doctors' groups were involved in this as well as, obviously, a range of other groups. The member said that there was no funding available for this. As the member well knows—I know she's very familiar with primary care—the workforce incentive payment already supports the employment of registered nurses in primary care settings. This will simply ensure that they're able to do some more work subject, obviously, to the oversight of medical practitioners working in those practices. Importantly, this will also enable registered nurses, subject to the endorsement of the board, to play a prescribing role, in the appropriate way, in other settings such as: aged-care settings; hospital settings, including for discharge; mental health settings; and others. For those reasons, we will not be supporting the amendment.
date: 2026-02-05T11:21:00+00:00

Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
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description: I thank the member for Werriwa and all of the other members for their contributions to this important piece of legislation. The Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical...
encoded: I thank the member for Werriwa and all of the other members for their contributions to this important piece of legislation. The Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill amends the National Health Act 1953 to authorise designated registered nurses as prescribers under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, or PBS. These nurses will be able to prescribe specific medicines that qualify for Commonwealth subsidy under the PBS. This bill advances scope-of-practice reforms identified by the Unleashing the Potential of our Health Workforce review, as well as the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce. Since 2017, the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia and chief nursing and midwifery officers have conducted extensive research and consultation on nurse prescribing models. The NMBA, the board, developed these standards for designated registered nurse prescribers through multiple rounds of public consultation, which received strong and broad support. All health ministers endorsed the scheduled medicines standard, which came into effect in September 2025, with the first cohort of nurses expected to complete their education and receive endorsement by July this year. By enabling designated registered nurse prescribing under the PBS, the bill supports safe, timely and affordable access to medicines. Registered nurses can already prescribe. This bill enables them to prescribe under the PBS, improving affordability for consumers. It enables registered nurses to better meet community health needs and strengthens the health system by addressing workforce shortages and building long-term capacity and sustainability. As with other prescribers, the list of medicines that will be able to be prescribed under the PBS by a designated registered nurse prescriber will now be considered, if this bill passes, by the independent Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee. This reform aligns with the objectives of the National Medicines Policy, promoting equitable, af…
date: 2026-02-05T11:12:00+00:00

Bolkus, Hon. Nick | Condolences | House debates
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description: It's with a lot of sadness but also a great deal of affection and pride that I want to make a contribution on the motion that was moved by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition's...
encoded: It's with a lot of sadness but also a great deal of affection and pride that I want to make a contribution on the motion that was moved by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition's address to it about the passing of Nick Bolkus. Nick was a huge figure in this parliament for a quarter of a century, but he was an even bigger figure in the South Australian community, in the western suburbs that I have the privilege of representing, and particularly in the Labor Party and the left of the Labor Party, which I want to talk about a little bit. He was an enormously important figure to me and to many of my colleagues, like Penny Wong, Jay Weatherill and so many others, and I'll talk about that a little bit. Nick was born in 1950. He tragically passed away on Christmas Day, at the age of 75, and he lived an enormously rich life—albeit one that, in the last six or seven years, was very seriously hampered by illness, and I'll talk a bit about that. His family didn't follow the path that is typical of Greek Australians who came to Australia mainly in the postwar period and, to a degree, a little bit during the Depression in the 1930s, when we opened up our immigration channels to continental Europe. His family was from the very, very small island of Kastellorizo, which is a very short distance—a Kazi, as the Minister for Multicultural Affairs says. This is a small island, very close to the coast of Turkiye. In the early part of World War I, it was very seriously impacted by the Ottoman Empire and some thousands of Kazis fled their homes and crossed the ocean and built a new life either in Canada or in the US—happily, for many of them. I think there were only 8,000 or so at the time in Australia. Nick's grandfather was one of those who left his island home in about 1915. So his family had been well established in Adelaide for a long period of time, before Nick was born in the city, in the West End of Adelaide. He went to Sturt Street Primary School. After it closed, h…
date: 2026-02-04T18:59:00+00:00

Medicare | Questions without Notice | House debates
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description: The member for Calwell is such a terrific advocate for Medicare in his community and in this place because he knows that Medicare is Australia's most important program. He also knows that the...
encoded: The member for Calwell is such a terrific advocate for Medicare in his community and in this place because he knows that Medicare is Australia's most important program. He also knows that the beating heart of Medicare is bulk-billing—the promise that every Australian should feel that they can go to the GP whenever they need to, rather than when they feel they can afford to; the promise that all they should need to take to the GP is that little green and gold Medicare card. But we know that, when we came to government three and a bit years ago, bulk-billing was in freefall. That was the description given to it by the College of GPs. And we also know that the reason why it was in freefall was no mystery at all. It was because the Liberal Party government had frozen the Medicare rebate and frozen the income of doctors year after year after year—most of those years—as a result of a budget decision overseen by the Leader of the Opposition, of course, when she was the health minister. Because of that freezing of their income, GP leaders had started to advise their members to walk away from bulk-billing. When we came to government, we were utterly determined to turn that around. In our first full budget, delivered by the Treasurer in 2023, we tripled the incentive that GPs get paid for bulk-billing pensioners, concession card holders and kids. It was a request from the College of GPs, and, when we delivered on it, they called it a game changer. Bulk-billing rates for those Australians are now comfortably back up over 90 per cent. We also delivered the three biggest general increases to the Medicare rebate in 30 years. The biggest, the second biggest and the third biggest since Paul Keating was Prime Minister. Also, only three months ago, for the first time ever, we delivered bulk-billing support to every single Australian, not just those with a concession card. I'm happy to report that, already, that is making a huge difference out in our community. The member for Calwell …
date: 2026-02-04T14:42:00+00:00

National Disability Insurance Scheme | Questions without Notice | House debates
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description: Thank you to the member, who knows just how much the NDIS is a proud legacy of our Labor Party. It's a world-leading program of supports for people with significant and permanent—usually...
encoded: Thank you to the member, who knows just how much the NDIS is a proud legacy of our Labor Party. It's a world-leading program of supports for people with significant and permanent—usually lifelong—disabilities. But when we came to government we found a scheme that was running off the rails. At a time when the scheme should already have been pretty much fully matured, it was growing at a whopping 22 per cent per year. Our government immediately started the hard work to get that growth rate down to a more sustainable level. We set a target of eight per cent growth this year, in 2026, and the mid-year budget update that the Treasurer published only several weeks ago reported that we are on track to meet that target. But I've also said that an eight per cent growth target for a scheme with a relatively stable population base is still not sustainable. On Friday, state premiers and chief ministers agreed with the Prime Minister and our government to work to get that growth rate down even further to five to six per cent or lower. Of course, we will do that work in close partnership with the disability community itself. But I make the point that sustainable growth in this scheme is not just important for the budget, although it is. It is also a critical way to ensure the long-term future of this absolutely critical scheme. The other concern that we encountered, though, was the huge number of young children enrolled onto the NDIS, particularly young boys. One in six junior primary school boys now are on the NDIS, and in some parts of the country it's as high as one in four. This is simply not what the scheme was set up to do, and it's not the best way to support young children with low to moderate needs. That's why I was also delighted on Friday that state premiers also agreed to our plan to introduce the Thriving Kids program. I want to thank the member for Macarthur, the member for Kooyong and a number of other members in this place for their really quick but comprehensive …
date: 2026-02-04T14:29:00+00:00

Health Care | Questions without Notice | House debates
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description: My point is on this side you'll get work for a stronger Medicare; on that side you get Hobson's choice.
encoded: My point is on this side you'll get work for a stronger Medicare; on that side you get Hobson's choice.
date: 2026-02-03T15:12:00+00:00

Health Care | Questions without Notice | House debates
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description: Once fully up and running, this network will see two million patients every single year, not just delivering high-quality urgent care free of charge—all you need is your Medicare...
encoded: Once fully up and running, this network will see two million patients every single year, not just delivering high-quality urgent care free of charge—all you need is your Medicare card—but, importantly, taking pressure off our busy emergency departments, something the Prime Minister talked to the premiers and chief ministers about on Friday. All of this is why Australians know what they get from the Labor Party when it comes to Medicare. But, after a decade of cuts and neglect, the alternative is still not very clear at all. Of course, the Leader of the Opposition has got a pretty infamous record on Medicare from her time as health minister. I'm not sure the member for Canning has ever mentioned the word 'Medicare' in this place, and, as for the great pretender to the throne, the member for Hume, who inexplicably remains on the front bench, a man with no apparent honour at all, plotting against his leader from the front bench, well, he described our Medicare investments as wasteful spending! Government members interjecting—
date: 2026-02-03T15:12:00+00:00

Health Care | Questions without Notice | House debates
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description: They're all open seven days a week, 365 days a year, with extended hours. Already they've seen 2½ million patients. A third of those patients were children under the age of 15, and a third...
encoded: They're all open seven days a week, 365 days a year, with extended hours. Already they've seen 2½ million patients. A third of those patients were children under the age of 15, and a third of them were seen on weekends, where they would find it very difficult to get into their usual general practice. Importantly, every single one of those patients has been fully bulk billed. All they needed was their Medicare card. Once this is fully up and running, the network will see two million patients—
date: 2026-02-03T15:12:00+00:00

Health Care | Questions without Notice | House debates
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description: Thank you to the member for Sturt. She's still in her first year, but she's already making a terrific contribution in this place and greatly representing her community in the eastern suburbs of...
encoded: Thank you to the member for Sturt. She's still in her first year, but she's already making a terrific contribution in this place and greatly representing her community in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide. Particularly on health, she brings really valuable insights from her time as a board director of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and she's already delivered on the commitment she made to open a Medicare urgent care clinic in Norwood. It opened on 17 December. It's in the heart of her community on the parade there in Norwood, and it's already seen hundreds and hundreds of patients, like Hermione Farmer's daughter. Ms Farmer wrote online about her experience. She said: My daughter used the walk in Medicare clinic at Norwood on NYE— and it's pretty hard to find a GP clinic open— It was great She got the high quality of care she needed in a timely fashion without sitting around in emergency for hours. That was the promise that the member for Sturt made, and it's just one of 122 Medicare urgent care clinics that are open right now. Another 15 clinics are opening in coming weeks.
date: 2026-02-03T15:12:00+00:00

Health Care | Questions without Notice | House debates
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description: I thank the member for Hunter for the question but also for his amazing work as the Special Envoy for Men's Health. He's busy lifting awareness and having honest, sometimes brutally frank...
encoded: I thank the member for Hunter for the question but also for his amazing work as the Special Envoy for Men's Health. He's busy lifting awareness and having honest, sometimes brutally frank conversations with Australian men about looking after themselves, about getting checked regularly, about seeking help if something doesn't seem quite right and about looking out for each other as well. I'm delighted that the member has agreed to take a leading role this year in the fight against prostate cancer as well. Of course, this is Australia's most common cancer. One in five Australian men will receive a prostate cancer diagnosis at some point in their life. Although we have very, very high five-year survival rates, around 4,000 Australian men every single year lose their battle to this cancer. On Sunday I was delighted to announce the government's 399th new listing on the PBS, a drug called Andriga-10. It's a new combination therapy for advanced prostate cancer that has proved resistant to surgical or chemical castration. Around 2,000 men will have access to this medicine, including Charles Abdilla, a terrific 84-year-old who joined us at the announcement at the Royal Adelaide Hospital on Sunday. Before Sunday, this new combination therapy would have cost around $900 per script, or $10,000 a year. Now it will be available to those 2,000 men at affordable PBS prices. As the member for Hunter knows, we've been busy ever since we were elected, making PBS scripts cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. In our first few months in government, three years ago, we slashed, by 25 per cent, the maximum amount that pensioners and concession card holders would pay for all of their medicine needs in a given year. Since then, pensioners and concession card holders have received an additional 87½ million scripts completely free of charge—scripts they otherwise would have had to pay for—saving them hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. Finally, we delivered 60-day scripts for hundreds of …
date: 2026-02-03T14:45:00+00:00

Aged Care | Questions without Notice | House debates
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description: I thank the member for her question, for her deep interest in aged-care issues, in particular, and for her engagement with me and with other aged-care ministers over the course of her time in...
encoded: I thank the member for her question, for her deep interest in aged-care issues, in particular, and for her engagement with me and with other aged-care ministers over the course of her time in government. As you know, there's been quite a deep public discussion about the issue of longer-stay older patients in public hospitals across the country, perhaps with the exception of Victoria, where there's a pretty strong state-run nursing home system that takes a lot of those patients more directly. But there's no question—the increase in longer-stay older patients across the rest of the country is quite significant and, frankly, tracks the increase we are seeing in the number of very old Australians as a result of the ageing of the baby boomer population. This is increasing demand for residential aged care and it is increasing pressure, by extension, on our hospital system. From the first term of the Albanese government, we have undertaken arrangements with different state governments to fund programs to divert older Australians from hospitals in the first place; they include, in South Australia, geriatric outreach teams that go out to aged-care facilities to try to prevent admission in the first place. Those are working very, very well. They're the subject of Commonwealth funding. We're also trying to ensure, as far as possible, that people are able to leave a hospital if they are medically able to do so. That, ultimately, in some cases, depends on there being a residential aged-care bed available to them, and we know there is a shortage of residential aged-care beds right across the system. That is why we put so much energy, particularly under the former minister for aged care, into designing a new aged-care system that would stimulate new investment—investment that had fallen off a cliff, frankly, over the period leading into and certainly during the COVID pandemic. Now, we are still engaged with state governments about that. It is a significant part of the negotiations…
date: 2026-01-20T15:13:00+00:00

Bondi Beach Attack Victims | Condolences | House debates
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description: It has been 36 days since the devastating antisemitic terrorist attack at Bondi Beach; 36 days since 15 innocent people had their lives so cruelly stolen from them; 36 days of unimaginable grief...
encoded: It has been 36 days since the devastating antisemitic terrorist attack at Bondi Beach; 36 days since 15 innocent people had their lives so cruelly stolen from them; 36 days of unimaginable grief for families who will never again hold their loved ones, never hear their laughter, never share another moment together. The Bondi terror attack was an act of pure hatred and cowardice. First and foremost, obviously, it was an act of mass murder targeted at Jewish Australians. But, by extension, it was a deliberate attempt to instil fear and to divide our community. It was an act of antisemitism. We must call it what it was. More than 150 years ago, my great-great-great-grandparents, Abraham and Sarah, migrated to Australia to join a growing Jewish community in vibrant 1870s Melbourne. Able to participate fully in civil and commercial life, and having built an extraordinary contributing livelihood, Abraham bragged at one stage that he had overseen the laying of more railway track than any other person in Victoria at the time. It was a community in Melbourne, attracted to the richness of the gold rush, that ultimately gave Australia its first locally-born governor-general, Sir Isaac Isaacs, and our greatest general ever, Sir John Monash, who led my great-grandfather onto Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915. My mother and her mother—although that side of the family moved to Adelaide and strayed from the Jewish faith—always taught me and my family to be proud of our Jewish heritage and of a country that gave a safe space for our forebears to come to, free from the antisemitism that was so rife across the globe, and allowed them to build such a wonderful life for them and their family, now six generations ago. After World War II, Australia welcomed even more Jewish migrants and enthusiastically supported the creation of the State of Israel. Australia famously cast the first vote in favour of that motion at the United Nations, a decision I remain unshakably proud of. That environment tha…
date: 2026-01-19T12:52:00+00:00

Medicare | Questions without Notice | House debates
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description: Thank you to the member for Lalor for her question and her support for a stronger Medicare. There are now 29 Medicare bulk-billing practices in her electorate that are bulk-billing all of their...
encoded: Thank you to the member for Lalor for her question and her support for a stronger Medicare. There are now 29 Medicare bulk-billing practices in her electorate that are bulk-billing all of their patients all of the time, as well as the Werribee urgent care clinic that's seen almost 30,000 patients, and early next year there will be a new endometriosis and pelvic pain clinic in Werribee as well. This government is ending the year as we began it—focused on a stronger Medicare and cheaper medicines. In just the first sitting week of this year, the government announced a landmark women's health package, listing, for the first time in decades, new contraceptives and new menopause treatments. Since then, more than 550,000 Australian women have saved tens of millions of dollars at the pharmacy counter because of that decision. Just a couple of weeks after that, the Prime Minister announced the largest ever investment in bulk-billing in Medicare's history. Already, well over a thousand general practices have gone from charging gap fees last month to bulk-billing all of their patients this month, and that number is increasing every day. That same day, we promised more doctors into the system. This year we've trained more junior doctors as GPs than ever before, and next year we'll break that record again. Just two weeks after that announcement, we announced 50 more Medicare urgent care clinics. Three are already open; 47 will be announced before Christmas and will be open in the following weeks. Then four out of five Australians will live within a 20-minute drive of an urgent care clinic open seven days a week, with extended hours and fully bulk-billed. All you'll need to take is your Medicare card. If that's not enough, two weeks after that, the Prime Minister attended the Pharmacy Guild conference and announced our latest wave of cheaper medicines measures: freezing the maximum script price for pensioners all the way to the end of this decade and slashing the maximum amount …
date: 2025-11-27T14:20:00+00:00

Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme | Questions without Notice | House debates
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description: Pensioners have received 83 million additional free scripts because of our changes to the safety net threshold, and, in five weeks time, PBS scripts will be capped at just $25, the same price...
encoded: Pensioners have received 83 million additional free scripts because of our changes to the safety net threshold, and, in five weeks time, PBS scripts will be capped at just $25, the same price they were back in 2004. While the opposition opposed many of those measures last term, they promised in May that they would support all of these election commitments. But I regret to say that risks to that are emerging. In between organising a very successful drinks event on Monday night, the very busy member for Lindsay managed to squeeze in an exclusive interview with the Australian where she staked out a position on every single policy except communications, and she said that there was 'too much matching', and that she thought that the Liberal Party should lean in to health policy a little bit more. Well, I'll tell you this: we remember, and Australians know what it means when the Liberal Party says that they're going to lean in to health policy. We remember when the Leader of the Opposition leaned in to health policy and extended the Medicare rebate freeze for four more years. They are an absolute risk to a stronger Medicare, an absolute risk to cheaper medicines. No matter which of them you pick, the member for Lindsay or the member for Hume, they're all a risk. Honourable members interjecting—
date: 2025-11-26T14:28:00+00:00

Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme | Questions without Notice | House debates
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description: Thanks to the Member for Griffith. She knows that the PBS is one of Australia's great social programs. For more than 80 years now, it's guaranteed access for Australians to the best medicines in...
encoded: Thanks to the Member for Griffith. She knows that the PBS is one of Australia's great social programs. For more than 80 years now, it's guaranteed access for Australians to the best medicines in the world at affordable prices. Since we came to government we have made more than 350 new or expanded listings on the PBS. This month we added a new treatment for multiple myeloma called Darzalex, which is the first new treatment for that condition in 12 years. Around 2,600 Australians are diagnosed with multiple myeloma every year, and the stakeholder Myeloma Australia has been lobbying for this listing for years now. Their legendary ambassador—we all know Sandy Roberts—described the listing as 'absolutely fantastic news'. Until now, this treatment cost $440,000 for a course of treatment, but now 1,400 Australians every year will be able to get access to it at affordable PBS prices. And we're making those scripts even cheaper. Already, Australians have saved $1.9 billion at the pharmacy counter because of our cheaper medicines measures. Pensioners have— Lights in the chamber having flickered—
date: 2025-11-26T14:28:00+00:00

Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
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description: I move: That this bill be now read a second time. The Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025 introduces historic reforms to health legislation that...
encoded: I move: That this bill be now read a second time. The Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025 introduces historic reforms to health legislation that empower nurses to work to their full scope of practice and improve access to medicines for people across Australia. This bill advances scope of practice reforms identified by the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce and the subsequent Unleashing the Potential of our Health Workforce review. It amends the National Health Act 1953 to authorise registered nurses, endorsed under the Registration standard: Endorsement for scheduled medicines—designated registered nurse prescriber, to prescribe certain medicines under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), attracting Commonwealth subsidies. This change empowers nurses to provide safe, high-quality care directly to people in the community, reducing the need for GP visits or long waits in overcrowded hospital emergency departments. Enabling prescribing under the PBS by designated registered nurse prescribers ensures the medicines they prescribe are affordable for patients. This reform aligns with the government's commitment to cheaper medicines, and with the National Medicines Policy. It promotes equitable, affordable, and timely access to high-quality medicines and services. Currently, our registered nurses, who are highly skilled and highly educated, remain underutilised in primary care. Allowing them to prescribe under the PBS will boost efficiency, strengthen care coordination, and ensure GPs and nurse practitioners can focus on patients with more complex needs. Designated registered nurse prescribing strengthens the health system by easing workforce pressures and building long-term capacity and sustainability. Improved access to primary health care reduces avoidable hospital visits and preventable hospitalisations. In rural and remote communities, people often have to travel long distances and face long wait times for even basic care.…
date: 2025-11-26T10:07:00+00:00

Medicare | Questions without Notice | House debates
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description: Only 10 nurses have ever served in this parliament, and three of them are in the chamber right now, including the terrific member for Bullwinkel. As a government committed to strengthening...
encoded: Only 10 nurses have ever served in this parliament, and three of them are in the chamber right now, including the terrific member for Bullwinkel. As a government committed to strengthening Medicare, we on this side are so lucky to have nurses, doctors, psychologists and a pharmacist all helping us to guide that important agenda. Last week the member for Bullwinkel and I visited the Mount Helena medical practice, one of the GP clinics in her electorate that have already registered to become Medicare bulk-billing practices, bulk-billing all of their patients all of the time. Shortly we'll announce the location of the Mundaring urgent care clinic that the member for Bullwinkel promised at the last election. That's one of 47 clinics that we'll announce over the coming couple of weeks and will open over the coming couple of months, and it will take the network to 137 urgent care clinics. They're all open seven days a week, with extended hours, and, importantly, they're fully bulk-billing, so all you need to take along is your Medicare card. Once the network is fully up and running, it will see two million patients every single year, most of whom would otherwise have had to go to their local emergency department. It's not just Bullwinkel that's benefiting from our strengthening Medicare agenda. That plan is working right across the great state of Western Australia. Take a seat like Forrest, for example. Already, 10 GP clinics in the electorate of Forrest have signed up as Medicare bulk-billing practices, bulk-billing all of their patients all of the time. Already the Bunbury urgent care clinic has seen more than 35,000 people, fully bulk-billed, taking pressure off the busy emergency department at the Bunbury hospital. Indeed, the Bunbury urgent care clinic has been so successful that at the last election we committed additional funds to help it boost staffing at busy times of the day. We also promised a Medicare mental health centre for Bunbury, and we'll deliver on that…
date: 2025-11-25T15:06:00+00:00