Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I foreshadowed earlier today that the government would be moving an amendment, which I think has been circulated—item (1) on sheet QH363. The government amendment reflects recommendation 2 of the Senate Community Affairs Committee report into the National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme) Bill 2007. The recommendation of the committee was that the minister report to the Senate 12 months after the implementation of the reforms on the impact of the reforms particularly on the cost of medicines to consumers.

What the government proposes here is just  that the minister must prepare a report on the impact of the reforms made by the bill and the impact on the cost of pharmaceutical benefits to patients as a consequence of the reforms. I should point out, however, that the preparation of the report, according to the amendment, must be completed by 31 December 2009. I understand that the opposition agrees with that because it is only at that stage that sufficient information will be available to make sensible conclusions about public policy. I move amendment (1) on sheet QH363 on behalf of the government:

(1)    Schedule 1, Part 1, page 63 (after line 14), at the end of the Part, add:

93A  After section 104A

Insert:

104B  Report on impact of National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme) Act 2007

        (1)    The Minister must prepare a report on:

             (a)    the impact of the reforms made by the National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme) Act 2007; and

             (b)    the impact on the cost of pharmaceutical benefits to patients as a consequence of the reforms.

        (2)    The preparation of the report must be completed by 31 December 2009.

        (3)    The Minister must cause a copy of the report to be laid before each House of the Parliament within 5 sitting days of that House after the day of the completion of the preparation of the report.

I see Senator Bob Brown here and I just want to correct a statement I made earlier in relation to the earlier debate, and I shall do this, Senator Brown, for your benefit in particular. Earlier, in response to a question from Senator Brown, I advised that Mr Ian Chalmers from Medicines Australia was a member of the Access to Medicines Working Group. I have since been advised that this is not correct. Mr Chalmers is not a member of this group. The fourth member of the working group is Mr Stephen Crowley. Mr Crowley is a nominee of Medicines Australia and is an employee of Janssen-Cilag.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are pleased to see that at least this amendment has come forward. But in saying that, this is the role of the committee. This is what usually happens in the community affairs committee. This is where you have discussions about what the appropriate date should be for reporting. If it had not been that there was an opportunity, because we went into matters of public importance, for the parliamentary secretary and I and our advisers to have a chat, we would be arguing about a date that was six months earlier. This is the appropriate date, 31 December 2009, for this to be reporting. At that stage we will have 12 months of real data and six months in order to conduct the inquiry.

That is why you do not truncate Senate inquiries—so that you have time to talk through and think through the implications of proposed amendments before the chamber across those people who are interested and involved. Unfortunately, because of the truncation of the inquiry, we have done that here. That is a bit of luck. I do not want to legislate by luck. I want to have a bit of time to think things through properly to make sure that we end up with the right result. Labor would have preferred our amendment in terms of the conduct of the inquiry—that it be done by the Pharmaceutical Services Federal Committee of Inquiry. We understand the government’s position on that. We would have preferred as a second option to have a group of people independent of the minister to conduct the inquiry. That would be our preferred position. But we will support this proposal as it stands given that it is better than nothing.

I am pleased to hear the parliamentary secretary confirm that this puts into effect recommendation 2 of the Senate committee of inquiry. The concern of Labor has always been around the cost to patients and consumers. The language, which has shifted slightly from our proposal, talks about the cost of pharmaceutical benefits to patients. As long as the cost of pharmaceutical benefits to patients means the costs of medicines to consumers including copayments and special patient contribution or premium payments is clear—and that is what the inquiry will be about—then we are somewhat happier than if we were not to have an inquiry at all. I thank the parliamentary secretary for at least negotiating as far as we have got on this—I think it is better than having nothing—and I also want to put on record my thanks to the advisers for their assistance and to my adviser who has gone back over to the shadow minister for health’s office where she lives. Thank you.

Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also support this amendment. I would have preferred the ALP amendment but I recognise that the government wishes to keep control of this. I was not able to make a second reading contribution to this debate. It is a very complex bill and a difficult one to understand in a very short time frame. There were not a lot of submissions; there certainly were none, I think it is fair to say, that were able to make an in-depth critique of this legislation. So it was certainly our feeling that a review would assist us to know whether or not we were doing the right thing in supporting this legislation. The PBS is a fundamentally important part of our health system and we were very nervous about supporting something which might undermine it in any way. We were very supportive of the idea that we should be moving to generic-brand medicines in this country, acknowledging that we pay more for them than other countries do. So it is a complex and difficult issue to deal with. As I said, we would have liked more time to look into this legislation, but that was not to be. We look forward to the review that this amendment provides for and hope that it is done in a very comprehensive and honest way so that we know whether this legislation has been effective or not.

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Bill reported with amendments; report adopted.