Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

What an absolute disgrace. You are gagging debate on a bill that is the first of this government's health budget bills. What is so important that this health minister cannot debate his own budget bill? Where are you going that you cannot spend the time on debating the first of your health budget bills? This is a bill that hardly any of you on the other side of this chamber were able or had the courage to speak for. Very few of you did, and none of you from marginal seats were able to say why you think it is okay, in the context of imposing a GP tax and cutting billions of dollars out of public hospitals, to increase the costs of medicines for everybody. More importantly, why you aren't defending those people in your constituencies who have chronic diseases and need multiple pharmaceuticals? What is so important that you will not debate this bill properly?

Members on this side of the House have been well and truly ready to debate and oppose this appalling bill. This is the first of your health measures. We have questions about these bills. What modelling have you done? What impact will this bill have on patients across the country? We already know that the last time the Howard government increased the Pharmaceutical Benefits co-payment there was a drop in people filling their prescriptions for essential medicines. We know that the COAG Reform Council's report, recently released, stated very clearly that there are many patients who are non-compliant with their medications and who are not filling their prescriptions because of the cost. This is a bill that seeks to fundamentally increase the costs of medicines by 15 per cent and to change the safety net—to make it harder and harder for vulnerable patients to access medicines. What do those on the other side of this chamber have to say about it? Absolutely nothing! They have not told us about the modelling they might have done to see what it will do. It is a $1.3 billion hit on all those in this country going to a chemist trying to fill a script.

This government does not want to debate it—it is not able to debate it. There was a paltry list of speakers from the other side yesterday. Four of them were trotted out to speak on this bill, and some of them were unable to defend it. There were no speakers from the government today. The minister did not want to allow the debate to continue and was not able even to sum up. This minister has some questions to answer on this bill. What modelling have you done? You are obviously modelling in that $1.3 billion that there will be people who do not fill their scripts. What modelling have you done about the impact of this? What modelling have you done on the combined impact of this and your GP tax? What modelling have you done on the impact on Australian families? You clearly want people to use less medicine; that is what the measure is designed to do. You have clearly decided that with this $1.3 billion, which you are ripping out of the pockets of sick patients trying to access medicines, there will be less usage and fewer people filling their scripts. What is the cost going to be on the health system—in terms of people's presentations to doctors and hospitals? People will be avoiding the care of their GPs because of your GP tax, and they will be avoiding medicines. They are serious questions that you should answer.

What have you factored into that $1.3 billion that you are ripping out of the pockets of patients trying to access money? You have been entirely focused in this budget not on the health of the population, not even on the sustainability of the health system, but on how you can cut health—not keeping people healthy, not keeping people well, not providing opportunities for people through the healthcare system to actually increase their capacity to participate in the social and economic life of this country. And this bill is just an example of it. It is the start of your horror budget when it comes to health and your horror budget when it comes to patients in this country. The fact that you are unable to properly debate it, unable to put up speakers on it, shows just how paltry this government's policy development is in the space of health. And, frankly, it is an absolute disgrace that you want—(Time expired)

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