Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) to questions without notice asked by Senator Ruston and Senator Hume relating to the pharmaceutical industry and the budget.

Senator Ruston asked some very serious questions in relation to the future of our community pharmacies. Those listening to this broadcast and those in the gallery will be aware of the major change that this government has announced, whereby Australians will be able to obtain dispensation of prescriptions on a 60-day basis instead of a 30-day basis. From the point of view of the customers of pharmacies, this seems like a good idea. But there is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone has to pay.

In this case, this announcement, which has been made by the government, is going to have a devastating impact upon our community pharmacies, including community pharmacies in small, regional and rural centres. That is of considerable concern to the coalition and it should be of considerable concern to all Australians. After all, we all want cheaper prescriptions, but what if the local pharmacy closes in your town because it can't afford to keep its doors open because of this change? That's what we're talking about in this question, and that is of great concern to those sitting on this side of the house. My office, like, I'm sure, other offices, has been inundated with queries from local pharmacies concerned about how they are going to manage to keep the doors open with this change.

Let's look at the report that was just released today. This report, which was authored by economist Henry Ergas AO, an advisory company and also a data lab out of Griffith University in my home state of Queensland, found that this policy will result in the loss of upward of 20,000 pharmacy jobs because community pharmacies will no longer be able to keep on the number of employees that they previously had, because of the effect of this policy on their cash flow. It's a simple matter of cash flow. If your cash flow is so materially disrupted, you simply don't have the money to employ as many people or to keep your pharmacy open for as long as it currently stays open. This is the devastating impact of this policy. They predict in this report that up to 665 pharmacies could close. Also, pharmacies will cease opening on weekends or will not stay open late, because of the additional costs they'll have to bear.

One of the surprising things in relation to the announcement of this policy was that finance minister Katy Gallagher admitted that no modelling was done. There might have been an impact analysis, but there was no modelling done prior to the announcement of this policy. If you are going to announce a policy which has such a material impact on community pharmacies across this country, you should at the very least conduct modelling before you make the announcement, as part of your consideration of the policy. But that was not done. In fact, now we're hearing from the government that they're actually going to do some modelling—after the event. What is this? You announce the policy and then you do the modelling after the event? It's meant to be the other way around. You're meant to do the modelling and engage in consultation as you're crafting the policy, and then announce the policy, which has the benefit of that input. But that is not the case here.

It isn't just us on the coalition benches making this point. It isn't just the Pharmacy Guild. The Office of Impact Analysis, which has a key responsibility in terms of how laws are made in this place and makes an assessment as to whether or not proposed laws have gone through an appropriate process, has found that the impact of the government's change to 60-day dispensing was not properly assessed to the standard of good practice. I repeat that: the Office of Impact Analysis, independent of the opposition, noted that the government's change to 60-day dispensing was not properly assessed to the standard of good practice. The government's impact analysis failed to meet the criteria for good practice due to a lack of public consultation, particularly on the potential impacts for small businesses and pharmacies in rural and remote areas. And that's the feedback we're getting now, especially from pharmacies in rural and remote areas. This devastating hit to their cash flow is going to have a material impact on whether or not they can keep their doors open. That sort of consultation should have been done before this policy was announced. We on this side of the chamber will fight for our community pharmacies from now until the next election.