Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The recently passed Health Legislation Amendment (Pharmacy Location Arrangements) Bill 2006 ensures that all Australians, particularly those located in rural and remote areas, have reasonable access to the supply of pharmaceutical benefits. One area of particular interest to me is the extended operation of pharmacy location rules and the health minister’s discretionary powers to locate pharmacies in areas of high unmet demand for PBS drugs. This will help communities that do not have reasonable access to PBS subsidised medicines because of unique circumstances. Our ageing population means that local chemists are taking more responsibility for and a more diversified role in health care in cities and towns.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

These rules give the minister flexibility to allow the relocation of additional pharmacies to one-pharmacy rural towns and the relocation of an additional pharmacy to one-pharmacy high-growth areas in urban developments, without regard to the usual distance criteria. This could be of great benefit to regional centres such as Bundaberg, which is a case in point. But let me say by way of preface to the rest of my remarks that I am not suggesting a laissez-faire approach where everyone can go and reopen a pharmacy. It is not that long ago that the previous government bought out a lot of pharmacies across Australia to ensure the viability of the remaining ones.

The suburb of North Bundaberg is separated from the rest of the city by the Burnett River and can only be accessed by two roads and one railway bridge. My argument with the North Bundaberg example is that, in the event of some natural barrier dividing the community, the existing 1.5-kilometre rule should be put aside. The growing suburb currently has 4,500 residents, which in itself is not enough to demand a pharmacy in its own right. But North Bundaberg has a fairly scattered pattern of development, with different housing clusters and a flood plain between the older and newer sections of the suburb. Consequently, the ABS has spread its statistical districts for North Bundaberg over seven collection districts. Because there are fewer than 8,000 residents in any one of these statistical local areas, the community does not meet the criteria under section 60 of the existing pharmacy location rules. The North Bundaberg situation is further exacerbated by the fact that a further 12,000 people from the Burnett Shire pass through the North Bundaberg area to access all manner of services, including pharmacies, in the city itself.

As it stands, this area of approximately 16,000 people does not and cannot have a pharmacy where it is most logically required, because North Bundaberg itself, as the crow flies, is less than 1.5 kilometres from an existing pharmacy. Quite clearly, the ‘8,000 in one SLA’ rule can only be met in densely populated areas such as capital cities or major provincial centres and cannot possibly relate to the circumstances of a diffuse regional centre.

There is another case, too. Where you have a train line through the middle of the town, the pharmacy might be only a couple of hundred metres away but, if the level crossings are a kilometre in each direction, how do people get to it?

The third circumstance is where a town has had two pharmacies, one has closed and the town has received an upsurge in population—which has happened along the northern New South Wales and Queensland coastal strip—and the town is then deprived of someone opening a second pharmacy. I do agree, however, that the minister should have discretion so that this rule is not abused and is only used when there is clearly some need for it.

I applaud the amendment to the existing pharmacy location rules and the inclusion of this ministerial direction. I note that these discretionary powers are not retrospective and will not come into being until July onwards. To that end, I urge the potential pharmacy proprietors for North Bundaberg or any other relevant location in my electorate to consider lodging an application after that date. I would also like to thank the minister for acceding to my lobbying. I think that this is an important thing that we need to address. There are a lot of areas that should have pharmacies but do not have them because the rules have been imposed thus far without any flexibility.