Medicine costs to halve after Labor wins 60-day dispensing vote

More than six million Australians will have the cost of their medicines halved within weeks as the government’s 60-day dispensing changes clear parliament.

Health Minister Mark Butler in question time. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

More than six million Australians will have the cost of their medi­cines halved within weeks as the government’s 60-day dispensing changes clear parliament, despite a last-ditch Coalition push for more consultation on the policy.

The reforms are expected to save patients $1.6bn over four years and are a key plank of the government’s response to the cost-of-living crisis.

While the future of the policy was brought into question this week when the Coalition sought to scrap the reforms through a disallowance motion, the move failed in the Senate on Thursday.

The Coalition sought to delay the disallowance motion until September to give Health Minister Mark Butler “the opportunity to get back to the table and resolve legitimate concerns” and convince crossbenchers to join the push for the policy to be tweaked.

Labor forced a vote on the ­motion after parliamentary question time.

Key independents David Pocock, Jacqui Lambie and Lidia Thorpe joined the government and the Greens in voting against the Coalition motion, which was defeated 31 votes to 26.

While clinching a win on the key health policy, Labor was unable to make headway on its Housing Australia Future Fund, which was blocked by the Greens and Coalition and delayed until October.

Despite the disallowance motion being voted down, opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said the Coalition had prepared another motion for the next sitting fortnight. “Our intention today was to allow for more time for consultation on this important policy,” she said.

“Today we sought to ensure this policy could be implemented without perverse consequences like job losses or restricted access to healthcare services, particularly for regional and vulnerable Australians. The government still has three weeks until this policy comes into effect to pause and consult.”

The 60-day dispensing policy will be applied to 320 common medicines and come into force from September 1.

Mr Butler said if the Coalition’s disallowance motion were to pass in the next sitting fortnight, which begins on September 4, there could be legal ramifications for doctors who had issued 60-day scripts since September 1.

“They’ve launched another disallowance motion … and this is just an extraordinary act of irresponsibility and shows what a tin ear this Coalition has around cost-of-living measures,” he said.

Nationals leader David Littleproud said the policy put “rural and regional Australian lives at risk”, pointing to figures commissioned by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia showing more than 660 pharmacies could be forced to close over the next four years.

“We have 432 pharmacies in towns where they are the last line of primary care to those Australians … we want these cheaper medicines but there’s got to be a better way to do this,” he said.

“The men and women in these community pharmacies have mortgages and if they can’t pay it, they actually reduced their staff and they shut down their shops. There’s over 20,000 employees that could be at risk here.”

Mr Butler rubbished predictions pharmacies would close and jobs would be lost, declaring such “catastrophic claims simply don’t stand up to scrutiny”.

“In the three months since I’ve announced this measure, there have been twice as many appli­cations for new pharmacies to be opened …. as there were in the same period last year,” he said.

“Clearly this sort of massive hit to business confidence that the pharmacy lobby and Coalition have claimed would happen is not being reflected in investment in the pharmacy sector.”

He would not rule out closures going forward, which he said could happen for reasons unrelated to 60-day dispensing.