Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Friday I had the pleasure of meeting with a number of my pharmacies from across my electorate and with Senator Anne Ruston to discuss the issues and impacts of the government's proposed sixty-day dispensing policy. Can I say that the impacts will be broad and many. The massive impacts on their revenue, along with their ability to provide services and continue to employ the staff they do, were well articulated by my pharmacists and are a consequence of the $3.5 billion that will be taken from community pharmacies. It will ultimately directly impact the services they provide to their clients and to the patients that come through their doors. Some pharmacies conceded they may even be forced to close their doors completely, with the average pharmacy expected to experience a nearly 44 per cent hit to their profits.

Smaller pharmacies will no longer be able to afford overheads to continue in business. And a time when we know business operational costs are going up and up, pharmacies in small communities will simply be unsustainable. They will have to close, leaving patients with zero access to pharmacy services. Many will be forced to scale back their opening hours, particularly those offering after-hours services. Those pharmacies also often act as a triage services, so sadly, as a result, these patients will have no option but to go to the emergency department of local hospitals.

One of the worst parts of this is that this Labor government has failed to consult and to listen to the concerns of these pharmacies, many of which are small businesses who employ multiple staff, often women. Under these changes, many of these women will be made redundant and lose their employment.

It is up to the government to engage with the pharmacy industry to sort out the issues that are going to affect our local pharmacies and, by extension, our local communities as a result of these proposed changes. The risk of pharmacies closing their doors, putting people out of work, providing fewer services to those in need in our community are a direct result of Labor's policy. The government should be held accountable for it and should actually do the work. They spend a lot of time in this place talking about listening. Well, how about the government listen to our local small-business pharmacy community to not proceed with this drastic policy change that will only hurt our communities.