Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Parramatta for his question. He's an enormously talented new member of parliament, and we're very lucky indeed to have him as part of the Labor team. I'll say that he, along with all the other members of the Labor team, at the last election promised Australians cheaper medicines. Already, in just 12 months, we have delivered three stages of cheaper medicines reform, including, obviously, the largest cut to the price of medicines in the 75-year history of the PBS on 1 January—a cut that has already delivered $120 million back into the pockets of hardworking Australians.

But we know there is more to do, which is why we've accepted the advice of the medicines experts who manage the PBS to allow doctors to issue 60-day prescriptions for ongoing health conditions at the same price as a 30-day script, halving the cost of some medicines for six million Australian patients and freeing up millions of GP consults. Thirty-day scripts make a lot of sense for a one-off course of medicine for a single episode of illness, but they make no sense whatsoever for ongoing chronic health conditions, where patients are on the same medicine year in, year out and decade in, decade out—sometimes for the remainder of their life.

That is why countries that we would usually compare ourselves to, like the UK, Canada and New Zealand, and so many more have been allowing 60- or even 90-day prescriptions for a long period. That's why our policy is supported by pretty much every single patient group and every doctor group in the country.

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