Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. What is the Albanese Labor government doing to change policy to make medicines more affordable and list life-changing medicines on the PBS?

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

I thank my South Australian colleague, the member for Adelaide, for that question. At this year's election Labor promised to strengthen Medicare and to cut the cost of medicines, and we're getting on with delivering those promises. Cutting the cost of Medicare is good not only for households who are dealing with unprecedented cost-of-living pressures but also for the health of the nation. We know from the Bureau of Statistics that every year as many as 900,000 Australians go without the medicines that their doctors have said are important for their health simply because they cannot afford them. This week legislation will be debated in this House to deliver the biggest cut to the cost of medicines in the 75-year history of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, cutting the general patient maximum co-contribution from $42.50 to just $30, and support for that legislation across the parliament will help us deliver those cuts on 1st January as we promised.

But I'm also pleased to report that Australians will see additional price relief for medicines even sooner than that. This Saturday, on 1st October, the government will deliver reductions in the prices of more than 2,000 different brands of medicines, delivering $130 million in price relief into the pockets of ordinary Australians and $930 million back to the budget that can be invested in new, innovative, state-of-the-art medicines. For example, 500,000 Australians use esomeprazole for the treatment of stomach ulcers, and after this Saturday each script for those 500,000 Australians will be about $7 cheaper. About 60,000 Australians use quetiapine for the treatment of bipolar and similar disorders, and each script for that drug will be about $6 cheaper next week than this week. On Saturday we'll also deliver six new and amended listings to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. The well-known immunotherapy Keytruda will be extended to head and neck cancers. About 500 patients will have access to that life-saving medicine that otherwise would cost $135,000 per course of treatment. After this listing, it will go down to $42.50 per script and from 1st January to just $30. Avelumab will be extended to the treatment of bladder cancers for 400 patients every year who would be paying about $106,000 for each course of treatment. Not only will the Albanese government's plans for cheaper medicines deliver much needed cost-of-living relief at this time of unprecedented pressure; they will also mean that no-one in this country need go without medicines because they can't afford them.