Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the report of the Finance and Public Administration References Committee on the administration of the PBS which Senator Ryan justly referred to as another government debacle. The treatment of life-threatening illnesses has been compromised by the decision of the Gillard Labor government to defer listing new drugs on the PBS. A Senate inquiry heard in Canberra that there was no formal criteria for the deferral of drugs and that the government's own advisory body had no inkling of this turnaround in policy prior to the announcement by the Minister for Health and Ageing on 25 February. Patients have every right to feel cheated by this decision and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee had every right to feel ignored.

It was obvious from the evidence that there was no consultation before the Gillard cabinet made this arbitrary decision to defer the listing of eight new medicines and vaccines. The Department of Health and Ageing even admitted that the initial decision to defer drugs was made in February 'in the context of the overall fiscal environment'. The penny-pinching Gillard government have been caught out trying to cut life-saving treatment to make its own bottom line appear healthier than it is. This is after they have squandered billions of dollars on fluffy stuff in people's ceilings and on the Building the Education Revolu­tion—you name it, they have wasted money it. Now here they are playing with people's lives—penny-pinching when it comes to life-saving drugs so they can make their own bottom line appear healthier than it is.

Minister Roxon thought she could win brownie points, but the inquiry rightly exposed the hot anger in the medical and pharmaceutical communities over the meddling by a group of people unqualified to make life-and-death decisions on people's treatment. How must the independent members of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee feel knowing that their expertise was ignored by Minister Roxon? Wouldn't you like to have been a fly on the wall when they had their closed-door meeting shortly thereafter when all their officials were sent out of the room? Surely this must compromise the professional integrity of the members of the committee.

We learnt from the inquiry that patients with conditions needing treatment with the deferred drugs had to take their chances. If they could afford to pay, they won the treatment lottery. If they could not, they missed out. The Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health and Ageing, Mr David Learmonth, told the hearing in answer to my question that the decision to knock back the listing of Botox as a treatment for excessive sweating, as explained by a young witness—