Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Payman for her question and for her extraordinary speech that we were privileged to listen to yesterday. The cost-of-living crisis that this government inherited is a decade in the making and it will not be solved overnight, but the Albanese government has already hit the ground running, successfully arguing for an increase in the minimum wage—something not argued under those opposite—introducing legislation which will drive investment in cleaner cheaper energy and putting downward pressure on power prices, also something you could never see from a coalition government.

Today we are introducing legislation to make medicine cheaper for millions of Australians. For the first time in its 75-year history, the maximum cost of general scripts under the PBS will fall. On 1 January we are cutting the cost of general scripts by 29 per cent, with the maximum cost to drop by $12 50, dropping the price from $42.50 to $30. This will save someone taking one medication $150 year; a family with two or three medications, $300 to $450 a year. We know patients continue to tell community pharmacies of the increasing pressures of having to choose between food on the table and medicine for their family.

This morning at Capital Chemist in Kingston, the Prime Minister met Greg, a single dad whose son lives with type 1 diabetes. Greg told the Prime Minister that the government's plan to cut the cost of medicine will make an enormous difference to his family, an enormous difference. It will ensure he can continue to afford the life-saving medicine his son needs.