Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Given that the minister has just advised the Senate that the Rudd government will press ahead with forcing vulnerable cancer patients and community pharmacists to fund the government’s $100 million cut to cancer treatment, when will the government inform cancer patients, who need to know now whether they can afford their chemotherapy drugs next month or indeed whether they will even be available? This is now the second delay and we are less than three weeks away from when, according to the budget, this measure is to be implemented.