Santo Santoro (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I awoke to the sound of Tony Abbott’s voice on radio saying that, if the interested parties were willing to resubmit their application, it would again be considered and that there was plenty of opportunity and there were plenty of options contained within the administrative and legislative framework for that application to be reconsidered. If Senator Webber had in fact been following the advancement of this debate earlier today, she would have heard that the Prime Minister again followed up the very sensible contribution to the debate this morning by Minister Abbott. The Prime Minister said:

Well my view is that it will be subsidised, I am sure of that. The debate at the moment is about the terms and conditions and you’ve got to remember that these companies do try and drive a very hard bargain, and it’s our responsibility to have this vaccine available for the mass immunisation campaign. And if agreement can be reached fairly soon, that mass campaign can still start on the 1st of January 2008. But you can’t have a situation where you just accept the first request that’s made by a company. I mean companies know that they have a very strong position in relation to these drugs where there’s a lot of support. But let me make it clear that this drug will end up being on the PBS list. It’s a question of precisely when and it’s a question of the price and the terms and conditions, and I think we have every reason to make sure that we get good value for the Australian taxpayer.

This is a very sensible attitude expressed first of all by Julia Gillard, amplified very well by Minister Abbott this morning and then subsequently by the Prime Minister. (Time expired)