Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

Nothing could give me more pleasure than to answer this question. Of all the things that this government has done in its time which represent the delivery of a strong economy and the translation of that into essential services it has been the listing of new medicines—new medicines for cystic fibrosis, new medicines for spinal muscular atrophy, new medicines for lung cancer, new medicines for skin cancer and new medicines for so many other different conditions.

I want to compare that with some of the things that the previous government did. They denied the listing and they deferred the listing for Symbicort, for the treatment of severe asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; for Fragmin, to prevent the formation of blood clots and to treat deep vein thrombosis; and for endometriosis and in vitro fertilisation medicines. They said at the time:

Given the current fiscal environment, the listing of some medicines would be deferred until fiscal circumstances permit.

That was when the Leader of the Opposition was the Assistant Treasurer. Not once has he ever explained why they made that decision. Not once has he ever stood and talked to the public about why he believed it was fair and reasonable to make those deferrals.

Let me deal with some of the things that the member for Ballarat has asserted. I have done a bit of analysis and a little bit of an assessment and we have looked at the sorts of things that they have talked about. When they stopped listing medicines, there was an average of 14.1 months of delay. In the cases they deferred on previous things that we have assessed, the highest average was eight months. We have been able to bring the listing forward to under three months for Kisqali, for Spinraza, for Kalydeco, for Orkambi and to one month for Tagrisso.

There was an interesting example that the member cited. The last time she talked about a specific drug was when she referred to a PBAC recommendation with regard to a vaccine. I had a look at that, and do you know what? It turned out that it was a proposal for the pneumococcal vaccine. What she didn't understand—and I can only think that it was misunderstanding, not wilful misleading—was that it had to go back to the regulators after a two-year assessment process. When the pneumococcal vaccine is finally approved by the PBAC we will list it but it hasn't been approved. When it is finally approved, we will list it, as we do with everything—as opposed to those on the other side, who made shameful decisions to defer the listing of new medicines.

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