James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last month, I, like many in this place, received hundreds of emails from community pharmacists from across Australia begging us to fight against the Albanese government's ill-thought-out 60-day dispensing proposal. What is interesting is that we, on this side of the chamber, got back to those community pharmacists. The community pharmacists said that Labor senators didn't reply to their emails and indeed would hang up on them when the community pharmacists called them up.

In the lead-up to budget night, the Albanese government proposed to slash the viability of community pharmacies. The Prime Minister and his health minister did not speak to pharmacists in rural, remote and regional Australia. They did not speak to pharmacists in suburban and urban Australia. The Prime Minister did not even bother to pick up the phone to speak to his own pharmacist. If the Prime Minister and the Labor government had spoken to community pharmacists across Australia, they would have realised the devastating impact that this policy would have on the viability of small businesses and the availability of prescription drugs across Australia.

The Prime Minister can hide no longer. This morning, an independent report stated that a 60-day dispensing period would not just shut down 665 community pharmacies across Australia; it would cost 20,000 jobs. Pharmacies will have to restrict their opening hours and many of their free pharmacy services, including blood pressure monitoring. This is not just what the coalition has been saying would happen to the sector or what the Pharmacy Guild has been saying would happen to the sector; it is what the experts have been saying would happen to the sector. This side of the chamber will always be on the side of the community pharmacy because we know that the community pharmacy is on the side of the community—unlike the Labor Party, who are only on their own side.