Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak on the National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme) Bill 2008. This bill makes minor amendments to the National Health Act 1953 which are desirable either to extend the operation of the PBS in certain circumstances or to remove some anomalies. For a relatively young country, Australia has a proud record on schemes which allow equitable public access to medicines and other pharmaceutical items. My colleague the shadow minister for health in the other place, Mr Hockey, detailed some of the history of the PBS in his speech in the second reading debate. I will not repeat that, but it is certainly worth while placing some of it on the record of the Senate.

The original scheme to provide access to pharmaceuticals was the Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme established in 1919, in the wake of the Great War, to provide free pharmaceuticals to ex-servicemen and women. At that time, the Hughes Nationalist government brokered agreements with the major drug houses to extend the facility not only to World War I veterans but also to those from the Boer War. The Curtin government tried to introduce a limited free scheme in 1944 but was opposed by the Australian branch of the British Medical Association, the precursor of the AMA, and the legislation was struck down by the High Court. A pharmaceutical benefits regime was successfully established during the term of the Chifley government but it was essentially limited to remote communities. It is a matter of pride to me as a Liberal that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, which underpins the operation of today’s contemporary PBS, was established by the Menzies government in 1953.

Particular mention in this debate must be made of the contribution made in this regard by Sir Earle Page. At the time Page was the Country Party leader and the Minister for Health, having served briefly as Prime Minister during the dark days of World War II. The current Deputy Prime Minister, Ms Gillard, rightly paid tribute to Sir Earle Page as the father of the PBS in an Evatt Foundation lecture in 2006. As a young surgeon, Page had contracted an arm infection while conducting a postmortem. The infection proved almost fatal. In 1942, when Page was Australian minister resident in London attending Churchill’s war cabinet, he succumbed to pneumonia and again was lucky to survive. So in 1953 Australia was fortunate to have as the Minister for Health someone who carried great weight in the cabinet as Country Party leader, who was a surgeon by profession but who also had personal experience in the dangers of infection and the benefits of antibiotics. As a doctor himself, Page was also able to act as a peacemaker with the BMA after their vehement fights with the previous Labor government. With such a happy line-up of the planets, Page established far-reaching public policy. Over five years from 1950, Page successfully piloted through parliament legislation to provide free essential drugs to the community, to maintain free medical services for the poor, to support private health insurance funds and to increase federal government grants to hospitals. All of these have endured through bipartisan support over the last 60 years, though I must say that the Rudd government’s recent budget decisions regarding a Medicare surcharge have severely undermined one part of our health system.

The bill before the Senate today extends pharmaceutical benefits to government officers working outside Australia and their accompanying spouses and dependent children. It also extends pharmaceutical benefits to couples, whether married or in a de facto relationship, who live apart owing to illness or infirmity. Couples in such circumstances will be able to continue to be considered as a family for the purposes of their entitlement to safety net concession and pharmaceutical benefit entitlement cards. I commend the government for making both of these changes. They certainly have the opposition’s wholehearted support.

The bill also widens the criteria used to determine that brands of pharmaceutical items may be co-marketed. The Bills Digest questions what effect this change will have on the industry, and I would be interested to know the answer to that query. There are areas of health policy on which the government and the opposition profoundly disagree. One of those is the constant spectre of the socialisation of medicine, which seems to be the concern of many in the medical profession, through the ill-considered development of GP superclinics. Those who remember the Whitlam government’s ill-fated community health centres will know exactly what I mean. However, with regard to fair and reasonable access to essential and life-saving medicines, there has never been any disagreement. Consistent with the bipartisan nature of the support for the PBS, on behalf of the opposition I commend the bill to the Senate.