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Monday, 30 May 2011
Page: 5169

Dr WASHER (Moore) (13:16): I thank the member for Pearce for bringing this important motion before the House. Judy, you have always been a good social operator in these areas. Minister Roxon has announced that in the future all decisions about drugs to be listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, or PBS, and recommended by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, the PBAC, will have to be passed by cabinet regardless of price.

The past process for getting drugs listed on the PBS was for the drug to undergo scrutiny by the PBAC, a committee independent of government, which Minister Roxon herself had said was one of the most rigorous in the world for assessment of a drug's clinical and cost effectiveness. This process historically evaluated new medicines for listing and negotiated prices. Any drug that was estimated to cost more than $10 million in any year needed to have approval from federal cabinet, a process that often led to delays of up to 12 months. This same process now has full cost recovery from industry for the PBAC assessment, whereas previously it was based not on cost recovery but on recognising the integrity of the PBAC recommendations and getting medicines to the patients in need.

The major worry is that patients will not get the medicines they need when they need them, an essential commitment of the National Medicines Policy that every government must embrace. In this climate, international manufacturers of new medicines may decide not to bring their medicines to Australia, a disaster for therapy in a modern medical world. Drugs still pending cabinet decision are drugs for bowel cancer, deep vein thrombosis, hyperhidrosis, schizophrenia, pain relief and asthma management, an anticoagulant and a synthetic hormone.

There should be extreme consumer concern that new and innovative drugs may be blocked from subsidy because of this government's ruling that causes indefinite deferral. For those in this House concerned about mental health, two drugs—one, known as Invega, for schizophrenia and the other, Consta, for treatment of bipolar disorder—have been indefinitely delayed despite PBAC approval. Several other new advances in approved mental health drugs for the treatment of severe mental health disorders are in the Australian regulatory pipeline but face an uncertain future.

The Prime Minister and cabinet announced that they would bring the budget into surplus by 2012, so they are using that reason to delay the listing of innovative medicines. I have always argued that unless we treat the consumer with the best therapies available to achieve evidence based, best practice outcomes, we will all ultimately pay more. For example, the drug for schizophrenia, Invega, deferred despite PBAC approval, is reported to have savings of up to $52 million per year in treatment costs. Apart from costs, there is no question that keeping people with mental illness working and living useful productive lives in the community is a moral duty. According to the latest ABS figures from 2009, mental illness costs Australia around about $20 billion a year. That includes the cost of lost productivity and labour force participation. Mental disorders were identified as the leading cause of healthy years of life lost due to disability. These new measures which block patient access to new medications on the PBS potentially affect every person with an illness in this country. This amounts to bad policy and bad medicine. I implore my Labor political friends to address the caucus to reverse this truly dreadful budget decision that for the first time has politicised the provision of medicines to the Australian community.