Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is not unbelievable. For example, let us look at the China free trade agreement. We know now that there is actually a fully authorised English translation of this document, but it has still not been made available to the community. It has still not been made available to the parliament. It has still not been made available. We see day after day government getting up and spruiking what a fantastic agreement this is. And we are supposed to say, 'Yes, it's fantastic,' but we are not allowed to see it. We have just got to say, 'Yes, we are going to support this agreement with site unseen.' We are not going to agree with provisions site unseen. We need a mature and sophisticated discussion about these agreements.

As I said, it is ironic that here we have the minister exercising, and I think quite properly, all of her powers in order to ensure that we get generics and biosimilar medicines into the system at the earliest opportunity. At the same time, we have got the trade minister going over there and undermining the very essence of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in these provisions of the TPP. I go back to our original comment: this is an immensely important agreement. The PBS is a fundamental part of the social safety net that is available in Australia, a part of what makes us such an equal and fair society. We want to see it strong and we do not want to see it undermined by foolish interventions in trade agreements.

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