Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Of course the government position is going to be that this will be a good thing for the dissemination of the best drugs at the cheapest prices to Australians. Of course it will say that; it is not going to say anything other than that. But my advice is that the access to medicines working group was a specific outcome of the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement process. If it is not and it was just set up separately, it would be good to hear that from the senator—that it was not something that came out of that discussion at the time of the US Free Trade Agreement.

I would ask Senator Mason, through the chair, to explain where the access to medicines working group came from, why we did not have it before, what it has replaced and what its role is. The government has been talking to industry for 100 years, I am sure. So there was not a need to set up talks with industry; that has been going on all the way down the line. Why this particular working group and why has it come hard on the heels of the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement?