Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The failure of the Albanese Labor Government to consult with the community pharmacy sector, particularly small and rural and regional pharmacies, prior to the announcement of their 60 day dispensing policy, which may see hundreds of community pharmacies closed, thousands of jobs lost and free access to critical primary healthcare ripped away from vulnerable Australians.

Today, I stand in support of the motion that I've moved in this place in relation to the failure of the Albanese government to consult properly—or even at all—on a very important new measure that's going to have a very significant impact on the lives of many Australians, most particularly vulnerable Australians and those that live in rural, regional and remote communities. We're calling out the government because it doesn't consult. We're calling out the government because it doesn't do its homework and it doesn't do the detail. And we're calling out the government because it does not consider the secondary effects of these announcements. They're all headline and no substance.

First of all, I want to put on the record very, very clearly that the opposition has always supported and continues to support Australians having access to affordable medications. But the government's failure to consult has been borne out time and time again since this ill-conceived policy was put into the public domain back in April. It was a great headline, but the consequences of this policy were completely ignored in the policy's development. First of all, we know that there was no real consultation when it came to the development of the impact analysis. We have a letter from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Office of Impact Analysis about this proposal, and I want to put this on the public record:

To have been assessed as 'good practice' under the Guide, the IA—

impact analysis—

would have benefited from more recent public consultations on potential stakeholder impacts, particularly for small businesses and pharmacies in rural and remote areas. Moreover, where stakeholder impacts are difficult to ascertain at this point in time … the IA would have benefited from a more detailed evaluation plan that outlines metrics and data required to monitor the impacts on stakeholders following implementation.

It's a very damning letter about the basis of the impact assessment that was undertaken by the government. I have to say I reckon a 12-year-old could have written a better impact assessment than the one we've got here. But most damning in the assessment is on page 28, where the government's own impact assessment on its 60-day dispensing policy says, 'The community pharmacy sector will be significantly impacted by this proposal,' and some pharmacies may even experience cash flow and purchase problems for stock. This is their impact assessment, but they still decided to go ahead with it. There was no regard for the knock-on impacts, but, most distressingly, there was no modelling done. No modelling was done. The Minister for Finance, who was representing the minister for health at estimates, actually admitted to the fact that there had not been any modelling done.

We now find out through the work of the Pharmacy Guild—and it's not just the Pharmacy Guild, to those opposite who will probably try and discredit the Pharmacy Guild; it's also the Australian Patients Association, Painaustralia, the National Pharmaceutical Services Association and the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia—whose name has gone onto a very credible document that has been written by an eminent economist, Henry Ergas, that the very people who were most likely to be the most negatively impacted by this are elderly people with chronic health conditions and regional Australians. They are the ones who are going to suffer. We've found out that 665 pharmacies are likely to close, but potentially another 900 will be at risk of closing, and some 20,000 Australians who currently work in the pharmacy sector are likely to lose their jobs.

Time and time again we have asked this government to guarantee that no Australian patient will be worse off either financially or with regard to access to pharmacy by this measure. It's no wonder they've never given us a straight answer; they've just run around the subject because they know that not only will the pharmacy sector be significantly negatively impacted by this but many patients will be negatively impacted as well. I think one of the most distressing things is just how many secondary impacts are likely to result from this: pharmacy closures, reduced hours and reduced services. Services that were previously provided for free will now have a charge. How is this government going to enable shortages to be addressed? What about wastage? That's before we get to pharmacy viability.

We've got a situation here where a government has rushed to a headline policy. They have had no regard for the potential impacts. The possibility that this particular policy is going to have significant negative impacts on many millions of Australians has been completely disregarded, despite the fact that the impact assessment clearly outlines it and subsequent evaluation has highlighted it, and there has been no consultation at all— (Time expired)