Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

First I want to single the minister out for great praise. He is one of the very few people in this parliament who has acted at great cost to himself personally in taking a moral stand on an issue. Having said that, if there is one group of people who are under enormous pressure at the present moment, it is our pharmacists. As one pharmacist said to me, 'Every single thing I have on my shelves Woolworth and Coles now have on their shelves—and they are selling them for less than I can buy them for.' There are discussions taking place that this has to stop, otherwise Coles and Woolworths will use their muscle power to force down supplier prices. If the suppliers are forced to reduce their prices to Coles and Woolworths, they will have to increase their prices to the independent pharmacists. That is one issue.

The second issue is that the income of pharmacists from prescriptions is being cut by 25 per cent. Of all the classes of people in Australian society today that I would not put the king hit on, the pharmacists would be the first. The Anglican schools in my town are only there because of the immense efforts and personal financial sacrifice of the Griffiths family, who own one of those pharmacies. The Catholic schools are only there because of the generosity and hard work of the Collins family. The same Michael Collins, a pharmacist in that town, put up about a quarter of the money to get the Cowboys rugby league team going in Northern Australia, which gave our young men, and a million rugby league fans who live up there, a chance to go into the national league—and of course six of our State of Origin players came from there. He has worked tirelessly to get our own local rugby league going. He is an absolutely exemplary citizen in every respect. These are the people who are copping the king hit here. I cannot understand the logic of the government in doing it.

Older people—and the demographic in Far North Queensland is very old people—can pay upwards of $100 a month for pharmaceuticals. Once you get over the age of 69 or 70, you are looking at $100 a month at least. We are talking about an extra $20 here. It does not sound like much, but if they pay, as we do in North Queensland, $3½ thousand for rates and $3½ thousand for insurance—that is half of their income gone on insurance and rates. I do not know how people are able to afford a feed! We have had two cases of people pulling their own teeth out with a pair of pliers because—the queues are so long in Queensland now that you can forget about getting it done there—they could not afford a dentist.

The government has made a very bad error here. Of all the areas of the economy that I would not hit, the pharmacists would be first. The last government hit them for 25 per cent of their prescription income and they are now under violent attack from Woolworths and Coles, which is cutting off all of their other income—you are going to take these people out of our community.

I will conclude on a personal note, which I cannot help but bring to the attention of the House, because I think most families would have had an incident such as this. I had a small pimple near my ear; because it was sensitive I raced into the pharmacy here in Canberra at about five to 10 and arrived just before closing time. I asked the pharmacist, 'What would I put on that?' She said, 'I think that's shingles. If you treat it within 48 hours you won't get it, but if you don't then you will be out for three months, and it is very painful. You will be completely out of commission and in very great pain.' She rang up a doctor she knew. It was two minutes to 10 at this stage, and she was about to go home. The doctor stayed on to see me. It was shingles. The doctor told me I was going to beat it by about three or four hours, and I raced back to the pharmacy. I tell this story to emphasise the great value of the pharmacists in our society.

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