Ms HALL (11:32 AM) —I would like to endorse the last comments of the member for Hinkler. There is definitely a need to look at surgical podiatry. It would benefit many of the aged people whom we all represent in this parliament if there were recognition through their Medicare payments and if the private health insurance companies decided to support such measures. I also join with the member for Hinkler in appealing to the Minister for Health and Ageing. If my support for his dealings with the minister will help in any way, I am happy to give it. Sometimes we can agree on things. I believe that it is a cost-effective way to deal with the issue and deserves to be supported.

The main part of my contribution will be directed towards the pharmacy agreement. It is most unfortunate that we are debating the Health Legislation Amendment (Australian Community Pharmacy Authority) Bill 2005 in the House today because it is all about the fact that the government was not able to get its act together and negotiate the agreement with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia prior to the time that the current provisions lapsed. The legislation provides for the extension of time of that agreement from 30 June to 31 December 2005. I sincerely hope that it can get its act together to conclude it by then.

Obviously there are some competing interests here, and I agree with the shadow minister that there is probably a bit of a blue within the Liberal Party about this. We have all been contacted by our local pharmacies, which I will talk a little about in a moment. I think the minister, the Treasurer and members of the government are hell-bent on pushing pharmacies into supermarkets. But they should be very careful about that because it will not necessarily develop the savings they believe it will, and I would encourage them to look at some overseas examples before they go down that track. This is a government that tries to walk both sides of the fence, and the fact that it has tried to walk both sides of the fence sees us in the Main Committee today debating a six-month extension. In speaking to the amendments put forward by the shadow minister I have to say that this issue definitely has not been dealt with in a timely fashion.

The next point that the shadow minister made was about the lack of transparency. We on this side of the House get so frustrated because every piece of legislation and every decision is made behind closed doors. There is no transparency, there is no open government and there is no taking the people of Australia into their confidence, rather it is deals done in the back room which all of a sudden come out and are placed before the parliament. While we are talking about health, one of the issues that I think is very hot at the moment is the Podger review. It has been lost somewhere within the government annals, and we wonder when it will be released. The Podger review is one that members on both sides of the House are very interested in; we are interested in learning the recommendations of Podger. But I think it is like this issue and there is a bit of a disagreement within the government. But we will see what happens there.

I believe a government is beholden to be transparent, to share negotiations with the parliament and with the people of Australia and to involve the parties that are subject to this negotiation, rather than at the last minute to throw something on the table and expect us to agree to it and expect the community to go along with it. We have the situation where people are being told what to do; they are being told to like it or lump it. Consequently, what happens on many occasions is that we are presented with bad legislation. This is a classic example of a government walking both sides of the street. Look at the fact that it has commissioned reports all over the place—it was interesting to hear the shadow minister say only a few minutes ago that Woolworths CEO Roger Corbett had indicated that he had been asked by Minister Tony Abbott to prepare a report and that that had led to a turnabout in the way the minister views the whole situation.

As I mentioned a moment ago, I have been contacted by pharmacies in my electorate. I believe that pharmacies play a vital role in each of our communities, particularly in regional and rural areas, because quite often they are the frontline health provider. They provide over-the-counter information to people when there is not a doctor available. Certainly in my electorate, with its great shortage of doctors and inability of people to access an appointment with their GP, people have had to rely more on their community pharmacist. Having that personal service devolved to a supermarket and having a situation where you can no longer go along and see your community pharmacist I think would be a great loss to communities in Australia.

I understand that the government needs to look at cutting costs. It is a government that has been faced with a blow-out in the cost of pharmaceuticals, but I have to put on record that that blow-out was known on 27 September, and I was really surprised when the previous speaker, the member for Hinkler, tried to abrogate responsibility on behalf of the government. He is an honourable man, but to try to mislead the House by saying that it was something that came about after the election I found quite disappointing. He is a man of fine character and a man who, I believe, always tries to put things in a correct light, but on this occasion he did not, because that was known on 27 September. I will leave it to the House to consider that matter.

The government is really hedging its bets here. There has been an increase in the cost of pharmaceuticals, but that is no surprise. We have known that was happening for some time. But the way the government has gone about solving the problem is very second class. The government is looking to make substantial savings in the area and, even though the Prime Minister and Tony Abbott made commitments to community pharmacies, their promise to give this profession protection is going to be one of those many non-core promises that we on this side of the parliament have become so accustomed to seeing.

Mr Bowen —Ironclad.

Ms HALL —Yes, it is not a rolled-gold promise. There is no guarantee with this health minister that he will ever deliver on a promise, and I am afraid I have to say that to the pharmacists that I speak to. On Saturday, I was speaking to Willie, who is the pharmacist from Lake Munmorah in my electorate. Willie comes from Scotland and he has been a pharmacist in the UK. He has worked under a system where pharmacies were allowed to operate within supermarkets. He said to me that the government is deluding itself if it thinks it can maintain the same quality of service that is provided to people at the moment and if it thinks that the cost cuts that it expects will be delivered.

The government really needs to look at this very seriously. It should not rely on a letter from the CEO of Woolworths, Roger Corbett. Rather, it needs to look at overseas experiences. We know that the government is very sympathetic to deregulation, but it should be very careful about it and look at what has happened in the US. It is interesting to note that in the US, which has a very deregulated pharmacy sector, it has been found that only 42 per cent of American adults received any verbal advice about their medicines, and in only 19 per cent of cases did pharmacists advise of possible side effects.

Here in Australia, you go into a pharmacy, you are given your medication and the pharmacist talks to you to point out side effects which could occur. On one occasion, I was given very good advice from a pharmacist about foods I could eat with a particular medication. One of the foods the pharmacist suggested I did not eat was a food I ate regularly. The consequences of my eating that food would have been that I would have ended up in hospital very sick. That is the kind of advice you get from your community pharmacist and that is the kind of advice we want to protect. We want to ensure that the people of Australia, whom each and every one of us in this House represents, get quality advice.

It is also interesting to note that in the US the rate for hospital admission due to medical misuse is approximately twice the rate in Australia. To my way of thinking, this does not look like the way to go. We on this side of the House have said on many occasions that Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and health system is looked at as being one of the best in the world. Unfortunately, this government is eroding many of the very fine aspects of our system.

Pharmacies are not another milch cow that the government can get money from. Pharmacies are an institution within Australia. Pharmacies are there to provide the kind of support that each and every Australian needs and deserves. If this government goes down the track of deregulation and pushing pharmacies into supermarkets, it will be just like going along to buy your eggs in the supermarket. You will hand your script over the counter, it will be given to you and you will not have the same care, treatment and advice that you can get at the moment.

It is also interesting to know, when we look at the agreement, that it was introduced at a time when the Howard government and the PGA were engaged in negotiations over the pharmacy agreement. Whilst the sensitive negotiations were being conducted behind closed doors, a lot of  discussion was taking place in the media. I have discovered that this government will float something in the media to see what sort of response they get from the community. If it is not too bad, they will go down that track. If it is somewhere in the middle, they will try to negotiate their way around it. This issue has been very prominent in the media. Players on all sides have been involved. The drug wholesalers were worse than the AMA and the government have been walking both sides of the fence, ever vigilant in not making a commitment.

This government needs to look at what will truly benefit Australian people, at what will deliver the best health outcomes to Australians. This is not about saving money. It is important that we look at ensuring that all legislation takes account of financial implications. The bottom line is that this is about the health of Australians and about delivery of the medications that Australians need. It is about ensuring that they get the correct advice when they receive medication from a pharmacist and it is about making sure that we have a state-of-the-art pharmaceutical scheme in Australia. We do not want this government and this minister to further dissipate our health system and go further down the track of pushing us towards the American system where they have twice the number of admissions to hospital of people who have problems through not following advice. I call on the government to do the right thing and look after Australia’s interests by ensuring that the pharmaceutical agreement is delivered on time in June, taking into account the needs of the Australian people.