Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I do apologise. I was watching the shadow minister in my office and could see the time, so I rushed down and inadvertently still had my phone on. I would like to speak briefly on this. I had intended to ask the minister a question on this issue in question time yesterday, but as questions were truncated earlier I was unable to do so. I am led to believe that, on the issue of macular degeneration, the Lucentis injection treatment has been accepted by the government. I am told that the opposition and other senators represented that view and the government has apparently accepted that. But I think there may still be some concerns in terms of the regulations that still have to be treated by both houses of parliament. I would just like clarification of that, if at all possible, because I think that issue highlights a very significant cause of blindness in our community.

If you look at the demographics of what the legislation was attempting to do for the great body of people accessing Medicare and other arrangements, the elderly in particular were a very small portion of that graph. There is no doubt in my mind that, for those people suffering with macular degeneration, the treatment could in fact assist. They may well have found that the additional money they would have to find would have caused them to make a decision not to seek the treatment. The outcome of that, in most cases, would be blindness. So I am pleased to hear what I think I am hearing but, if the minister is able to give some clarification to that, I think many elderly people with that disease—and those people working for them—would be very pleased to hear it.

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