Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. How is the Albanese Labor government making medicines cheaper for all Australians, including new medicines being added to the PBS? How do cheaper medicines help strengthen Medicare after a decade of cuts and neglect?

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

I thank the member for Werriwa for her question. She is such a strong supporter of our work to strengthen Medicare and make medicines cheaper. It's something we talk about constantly. And she knows that, in just over two years, we've made more than 260 new or expanded listings on the PBS, providing Australians with access to the world's best medicines at affordable PBS prices.

This month, we've expanded access to Evenity, a leading treatment for severe osteoporosis. Up until now, Evenity has only been available after a patient, usually an older woman, has suffered not one but two separate fractures, but now it will be available as a first-line treatment immediately after a diagnosis of severe osteoporosis. This is going to benefit more than 9,000 mainly older Australians every single year. And instead of those older Australians paying almost $5,000 for a course of treatment, it will be available at affordable PBS prices.

At the same time we've been making those PBS prices cheaper. In the first three months of our time in government, we slashed the maximum amount that pensioners would pay each year for their medicines by 25 per cent. Last year alone that meant an additional 22 million free scripts for Australia's pensioners—22 million!

We also delivered the biggest cut to the price of medicines in the 75-year history of the PBS and we finally allowed doctors to prescribe common long-term medicines for 60 days supply, not just 30. And as the Prime Minister said earlier in question time, these measures have saved Australians more than $1 billion in co-payments at the pharmacy counter, making a real difference at a time of cost-of-living pressure. We know Australian households are still doing it tough. That's why we're also freezing the price of medicines next year for up to five years, which will save them another $500 million.

But we also know that all of this progress on making medicines cheaper is under threat. It's under threat from a Liberal Party that voted against those measures in the first place and under threat from a shadow Treasurer who continues to describe our investments in Medicare as 'wasteful'. They'd be lined up for the chopping block if the shadow Treasurer ever got his way on this side of the House, God forbid, but they'd also be under threat from the Leader of the Opposition who, when he was health minister, only ever tried to push health prices up rather than down. I said we've already saved patients more than $1 billion at the pharmacy. In his first budget as health minister, the Leader of the Opposition actually tried to force medicine prices up in a way that would have cost patients a billion dollars more, not a billion dollars less—proving yet again that you can't trust this man and you can't trust the Liberal Party on Medicare.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On that note, Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.