Mr RANDALL (8:26 PM) —I am very pleased to be able to speak this evening on the National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits—Budget Measures) Bill 2002 [No. 2]. The reason I decided to speak on this bill this evening—because it is not something I would normally speak on—is that I wished to address the cant and hypocrisy of the Australian Labor Party on these measures. It is the most opportunistic behaviour I have seen from an opposition, but it is the hallmark of their leadership, and it is the hallmark of their behaviour under the current leader of the Australian Labor Party, Simon Crean.

The member for Perth is generally quite a decent sort of fellow, but for him to talk about hypocrisy and about one thing being said before the election and another thing after the election just shows that the Labor Party has no shame. We only have to mention the border protection measures. Before the election, my opponent in the seat of Canning used to go on the radio with me and say, `We are with the government on border protection measures. There is not a cigarette paper difference between our policy and theirs.' What have we seen since the election? We have seen a total departure from that view. We have the member for Fremantle saying that she is ashamed and she cannot be a part of it. Harry Quick and other members of the Australian Labor Party are walking away from it in droves.

The member for Perth said that we told the Australian people one thing before the election and another thing after. But let us have a look at what happened today with the Labor Party's policy shift on the one-third rebate for private health insurance. `We're right with you,' they said before the election. After the election and as late as March this year, the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Jenny Macklin, came out and said, `We're with you on private health insurance. We're with you all the way. We're not going to change.' What have they done today because they are under pressure and are rudderless at a leadership level? They have decided to try to reinvent themselves on a few issues, and one of those issues is the one-third rebate. The people of Australia really want that rebate. Mr Deputy Speaker, you will recall that, before the measure came in, Australians used to come to us and ask, `Why can't we have it like we used to in days gone by, where you could actually have a tax concession on private health insurance?' That is why I joined HBF, for example, in Western Australia. We joined it because we knew that we would get something back. There was an incentive for us. Yet, what are the Australian Labor Party doing? They want to take that away from the Australian people. We know that the pharmaceutical benefits measures from the budget are designed to address the burgeoning blow-out in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the PBS. That scheme has blown out from $1.23 billion in 1991-92 to $4.83 billion in 2001-02, an almost fourfold increase. If anybody thinks that is sustainable well into the future, they are living in la-la land.

When Hillary Clinton was in Australia with Bill Clinton some years ago, she met with Michael Wooldridge, the then health minister, to find out how we were able to run a dual health system in this country—a system that addresses not only the poor and those who are unable to be part of the private health sector but also those who can afford to pay—and she was mystified. We have a Rolls Royce health system in this country that is the envy of the world, and it is the envy of the world because it is well managed. But what do the opposition want? Rather than see the system continue, they would see it collapse and fall in a screaming heap, to the cost of the people of Australia, enabling them somehow to get a political advantage out of it all. It is a disgrace for which they need to be exposed and, hopefully, that is what the reintroduction of this bill will do. Mr Deputy Speaker Lindsay, I can assure you that the Australian people are not stupid. They know that you cannot sustain a system like this that, in 10 years, has blown out four times its weight.

The shadow health spokesman, the member for Perth, talks about this being `just a measure to try and prop up the budget'. Again we are faced with the cant and hypocrisy of the Australian Labor Party, which ran deficits for all those years previously. We came out in the last budget and said that there was going to be a deficit, even though we have not yet had one—and why? Because we are running the Australian economy as one of the great economies of the world. As I have said, the people of Australia are not stupid. They know who runs a decent economy in this country. They know that, if the Labor Party were to get in office again, we would be back in hock the way we were before. The member for Perth has a most unusual approach to this measure: the more you spend, the more you save. That is very good if you are an avid shopper who goes into Woolies and finds there is a big `for sale' sign—a third of the price off, and so on. In they race: `The more we spend, the more we save.' The only trouble is that they run out of money. It is an absolutely bizarre sort of approach to the whole measure.

We do know that this concerns only a small copayment and that this small copayment has been designed as a measure to at least help keep running this huge and growing facility—a facility which eventually will cost more than the running of the entire health system. As reported in the Intergenerational Report, eventually the PBS will cost more than the running of the Australian health system. But, no, that does not really matter to the Labor Party. They go off saying, `You are'—to use what I think were the words of the member for Perth—`thugging the sickest and the poorest.'

The emotional and emotive language used by the opposition to try and gain some political advantage in this debate is disgraceful. I am sure that the majority of clear-thinking Australians will see right through such language, because the sickest and the poorest are looked after by this government in the best possible way. We know that, after 52 scripts, concession cardholders and pensioners get their medicines free. We know that it is the same with the copayment in connection with the threshold for general patient safety. The fact is that we are asking for a rise from $3.60 to $4.60 for concessional patients and from $22.40 to $28.60 for general patients. At the end of the day, as I have said, if they use up all those scripts to the end of the year, a dollar a week is seen by most clear-minded people as being a reasonable contribution.

As we have said, one reason for our needing the copayment is to help keep pace with the huge cost blow-out; but, secondly, there have been abuses of the PBS scheme. Some time ago in my electorate it was recounted to me that, on the death of a family member, an individual went to their pharmacy and said, `Look, we've got a heap of my departed father's left-over medicines; we're a bit worried about them all lying around the house and think they should be handed in.' The pharmacist said, `Look, we'll send the young girl down there with a couple of bags to pick up the left-over medicines and we'll dispose of them in the way we should.' The individual said, `Don't send a couple of bags; you're going to need a ute.' They had been hoarding these medicines. In fact, one reason for some people hoarding them is that, after buying 52, they know they can get them free. So they absolutely stockpile them but, all of a sudden, the doctor changes their medicine and they have to start stockpiling another one. We know that many people on a variety of treatments take a huge number of pills and medicines and, ultimately, they can stockpile a huge amount—and this is one of the abuses.

I am not saying that stockpiling is terribly widespread, but fraud is. That is one of the reasons why identification became part of going to a chemist when getting medicines under a concessional arrangement. People were going into any pharmacy and just saying, `Oh, yes, I'm a concessional patient,' without having to show any ID, and were getting these medicines for concessional prices. We were told that, because Australia has such a marvellous antibiotic regime, a lot of these medicines were being sent to families overseas where the same sorts of regimes were not in place. So we are talking about what appeared to be large-scale fraud and malpractice amongst people who were involved with the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, and a copayment does have the effect of slowing this sort of thing down.

A lot of people also do not seem to appreciate that over half of the medicines available are under the threshold. For example, I am not a severe asthmatic but I do use a Ventolin inhaler, which costs about $10. Thousands of people around Australia buy thousands of these Ventolin inhalers or other forms of asthmatic drugs on a daily basis. Such an inhaler costs around $10, which is well and truly part of the scheme. None of these people will be hit or touched; in fact, they will not be affected at all. But this will address some of the expensive and high-cost drugs.

The opposition spokesman, the member for Perth, also wanted to say that there is no compensation for these measures. Let us just remember that 10 years ago, when the Labor Party was running this scheme—with the support of the government, rather than the opportunistic way the opposition is carrying on now—the copayment was 20 per cent. No-one disputes that—it was 20 per cent as part of the scheme. Today it has eroded to 15 per cent. That needs to be repeated. Anyone tuning in needs to know that the Labor Party, when it was in government, was quite happy to charge 20 per cent, with our support. Yet when we ask for the same treatment, those opposite say, `No, you're going to hit the sickest and the poorest.' What happened to the sickest and the poorest when they were charging 20 per cent? It is all relative, isn't it? It is all proportional. The people out there in radio land listening to this have to understand that the cant and hypocrisy of the Labor Party on this measure show no bounds. Ultimately, as I said, it would rather burn the whole system down and try to gain some sort of political benefit out of it failing.

I have a caravan I take around to some of the isolated towns in the electorate; we sit down and everyone walks up and has their say. Recently, there was an interesting case where a person with a concession card came up and wanted to talk to me about the drug Caverject, which is a penile injection. He had run out of scripts. Apparently, there is a limit of five scripts unless the doctor sees a very good reason why you should continue to have Caverject. This man was blaming the Prime Minister. He was blaming the Prime Minister because he could not get his penile injections any longer and wanted to know why he could not have Viagra under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

We would all like assistance in different areas every now and again, but can you afford to have widespread distribution of Viagra at $70 a script? As this gentleman pointed out to me, there are only four pills in a Viagra set; they do not go a long way. If you have to pay for it, $70 is a lot of money. At the end of the day, yes, we would all like some of this assistance—well, not all of us! Some of us would like some of this sort of assistance. At the end of the day we are not all entitled to the luxuries that drugs bring us. I could go on and mention other cases. The same gentleman also said, `This rotten Johnny Howard, he's taken away all the cholesterol drugs, you know. I'm going to die early because your Prime Minister has taken away my ability to live a longer life because I can't get hold of these cholesterol drugs.'

Dr Emerson —But he's going to die happy, by the sound of it.

Mr RANDALL —I missed that, but it was obviously funny because the assistant clerk thinks it is good.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lindsay)—The member for Canning will return to the substance of the debate.

Mr RANDALL —The substance of the debate. We could probably return to the previous one. Getting back to the cholesterol drugs, he was accusing the Prime Minister because he could not get access to these. I thought this was strange. I am not on top of everything in relation to drugs; I thought I would ring the minister's office and find out whether this is true—whether all these drugs have been knocked off in terms of access on concession. It was not true. There are five cholesterol inhibitor drugs on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that could apply to that gentleman. He was amazed. He said, `Why didn't my doctor tell me?' I don't know why. He was trying to accuse the doctor of not telling him the truth.

There are many myths floating out there about what you are entitled to under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and what you are not entitled to. It is quite bizarre. At the end of the day, if he could not have used any one of those generic drugs which are on the scheme—the five cholesterol drugs that he could have had access to—his doctor then could prescribe him a drug. If he could not have anything else and all else failed, his doctor would prescribe him a drug which would suit him and help him with his health. This is one of the greatest schemes; this is one of the greatest measures that the Australian public want. They want it to continue, but it will not continue without the support of the Labor Party.

I am running out of time. I got a little sidetracked there for a while. In the last six months, the additions to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme have cost $148 million. That is because of the new drugs coming on. I seek leave to table the list of new drugs which have come onto the scheme in the last 12 months, just to demonstrate what they are—because I cannot pronounce all their pharmaceutical names or chemical names—and the cost of them.

Leave granted.

Mr RANDALL —I know that you are enjoying it, so I am sure you will enjoy the reading. Thank you. The fact is that the TGA evaluates an enormous number of drugs. As well as the drugs that the TGA has identified, I seek leave to table a list of the drugs that the TGA has recommended for approval but the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee has not yet suggested should be on the list.

Leave granted.

Mr RANDALL —We know that something like 90 drugs a year are put forward by the TGA for approval. I want to let you know the approval rate that this government has taken on over the last number of years. In 1997 the number of drugs included on the PBS was 38; in 1998, 45; in 1999, 37; in 2000, 34; in 2001, 34; and in 2002, 31. In fact, over the last six years there have been 219 new drugs—

Dr Emerson —Oh, that's how many boats arrived before the Tampa.

Mr RANDALL —I heard the interjection of the member and yes, I appreciated every one of those votes. Thank you very much; we were very glad of them. It is very important to understand the blow-out in the cost of some of these measures. Without going through each drug individually, I can say what we know about some of the most expensive drugs on the list today. For something like Lipex for the treatment of high cholesterol, which I talked about previously, the average price is $60. At the moment concession cardholders pay $3.60 or $22, and the cost is increasing by $1 or $6. I could go through the whole list, but I am not going to do that because we are just about out of time.

The final thing I want to say on this measure is that this government is responsible in terms of what it is endeavouring to achieve. It does not share the `the more you spend the more you save' mentality of the Labor Party. It is not an opportunistic party that wants to destroy a scheme just to prove a political point in conjunction with a rogue Senate. This government wants to provide the best system to the Australian people. It is a Rolls Royce system that is the envy of the world. There is only one way it can be destroyed. This is a time when we are spending money on the war on terror and when we have a drought in this country. These things mean we need to be financially responsible. We need the help of the Australian Labor Party to see that we are financially responsible, and their reaction is: `No. Because we can get some political gain out of it, we will oppose you all the way.' Bring on the double dissolution.