Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) | Link to this | Hansard source

Today we have seen how unbelievably allergic this government is to transparency with their attempt to guillotine more bills today than they've passed using the proper processes in the entire year. But this is just one example of a pattern of behaviour. Another example of this government's complete opaqueness that I find particularly egregious is their approach to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee process, which dictates which new medicines are going to be made available on the PBS to Australian patients. In Senate estimates three weeks ago the department belled the cat and admitted that there's going to be an ongoing cap on the number of medicines that can be considered for listing on the PBS under the Albanese government. After deflections and denials by the department and the government, we have received confirmation that there could be ongoing delays in patient access to new essential medicines.

This is the first time in history the PBS has had a cap of this nature, and never under the former coalition government was there a limit on the number of medicines that would be considered for the PBS under the PBAC process. It's an unacceptable development in the PBS' history, especially when the government has just released its health technology assessment review, which acknowledges that Australia is falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to getting access to new treatments and medicines. This decision has also evoked concerning comparisons to 2011, when the Gillard Labor government deferred subsidised PBAC recommended medicines as a budgetary measure—and they admitted it at the time. But the government refuses to take responsibility, with Senator Gallagher continuing to agriculture that there is no cap. This is a cap; it literally says it on the PBS minutes. The government must own up to patients who are waiting for affordable access to potentially lifesaving medicines, and guarantee they will get access—as promised in the lead-up to the last election.