Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We are purportedly sitting in a country of plenty—so much plenty, according to this government, that you can throw money around like water, almost indiscriminately. It seems this government thinks that what is important in Australia is finding where to spend more money and where to take it from. These are the priorities of this government. The Treasurer wants to be the magic giver, apparently throwing money at everybody. But let us see where those funds are going, who is actually getting the largesse. My constituents have said they would rather have the services than minuscule tax cuts.

Let us have a look at the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, a method of subsidising those very important lifesaving drugs that people need in this country of ours. The Treasurer said after the last budget that we cannot afford the PBS in its present form, that we had to change it, that it had to be cut back and reduced. The result was that in 2005 we saw a dramatic drop in the number of prescriptions being filled—almost two million fewer scripts than were filled in 2004. This does not signify that people are getting better. It means that both Abbott and Costello have targeted the PBS to deliver savings—

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