Government to introduce legislation for cheaper PBS medicines next week as parliament resumes
Anthony Albanese says he remained focused on delivering cost-of-living relief, which was a key election promise at the May 3 poll which delivered him a whopping 94-seat majority.
The legislation would cut PBS medicine costs to $25 and freeze concession prices at $7.70.
'We want to focus very much on cost-of-living. That was the basis upon which we were elected,' he said on Sunday.
'The size of your bank balance shouldn't determine the quality of your healthcare.
'In the last term, we had a range of measures, and the Coalition opposed all of them.
'This term, we've already had all the changes on July 1: the increase in the minimum wage, the changes that we have made in energy bill relief, the cheaper batteries, the range of measures now, this week, we will have cheaper medicines.
'We said we would make cheaper medicines even cheaper - that is exactly what we are doing.'
It would reduce the maximum cost of PBS medicines by 20 per cent from January 1 next year, which is expected to save Australians over $200 million annually.
Health Minister Mark Butler said the change would make medicines for general patients the cheapest they've been since 2004.
'For pension and concession card holders we've frozen your medicine prices at a maximum price of $7.70 until the end of the decade,' Mr Butler said.
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Sky News AU
an hour ago
- Sky News AU
The week the West was lost: Anthony Albanese joins the countries 'duped' on Israel by terrorists in trucks
This past week has demonstrated how the Western world, which often speaks about defending freedom, liberty and democracy, can be so easily duped by terrorists in pick-up trucks. We saw a statement by 28 countries, including Australia, that was so detached from reality that it blamed Israel for the terrible consequences of the current war in Gaza, rather than Hamas who started the war in the first place, and is refusing all attempts to end it. And of course, it called for an immediate permanent ceasefire without calling on Hamas to disarm or give up power. This is akin to calling for the end of World War II while leaving Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan intact. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese went a step further saying in a statement that Israel was 'killing civilians, including children, seeking access to water and food' and that its actions 'cannot be defended or ignored'. Despite these harsh and demonstrably untrue words, he didn't go as far as French President Emanuel Macron who declared France's intentions to recognise a Palestinian state in September. Britain and Canada have now signalled similar intentions. In doing so these countries are effectively rewarding Hamas for its atrocities of October 7, 2023, while whitewashing almost 100 years of Arab and Palestinian terrorism and intransigence. They appear to have forgotten how Palestinian leaders have constantly rejected statehood from as long ago as the 1937 Peel Commission plan to the more recent 2008 Olmert plan and up until the 2020 Trump Plan, in which the Palestinians refused to even engage. These declarations were predictably praised and lauded by both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. One would think that when a death cult praises you, along with a corrupt entity that financially rewards terrorism, this would cause you to question whether your understandings and actions are morally sound. Well, think again! The West has lost its moral compass and now flounders in the dark, unable to have the courage and conviction of its own stated values, preferring instead to attack the victims of evil, rather than evil itself. No one denies there is suffering in Gaza and the images are horrible, but what so much of the West still refuses to accept is that this is a direct result of the deliberate intentions of a death cult terror group whose leaders openly state that their goal remains the destruction of the Jewish state and the genocide of the Jewish people. Moreover, these same leaders have also been open that they believe the suffering of Gaza civilians are 'necessary sacrifices" and serve their evil cause. Israel has already facilitated over 1.8 million tonnes of aid into Gaza – and has just announced several major measures to improve aid access, including daily local ceasefires, designated aid corridors, aid airdrops, and facilitating aid donations from Egypt and Jordan. But it was telling that it was only after Israel exposed that there were still over 950 truckloads of aid on the Gazan side of border awaiting collection last week that the United Nations agencies, which work closely with Hamas, finally began to move some of that aid. So why didn't these agencies do this before? Meanwhile, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has delivered the equivalent of more than 91 million meals to needy civilians, bypassing Hamas' looting and interference – a fact that no country making these virtue-signalling declarations has even acknowledged. Even when the GHF offered to help deliver the stranded aid trucks, the UN still refused to take up that offer. The GHF may not be perfect, but it is delivering aid directly to people in need. The fact that the UN won't even engage with the GHF demonstrates that it has abandoned any pretence of supposedly prioritising helping ordinary Palestinian civilians over other goals. The obsession the world has in blaming Israel for the current crisis is not only misplaced – it's dangerous. Anti-Semitic incidents have been cropping up all around the world, including Australia. In Spain, 50 Jewish school kids were kicked off a flight for singing Hebrew songs. Jewish cruise passengers were also prevented from disembarking by anti-Israel protestors at a Greek port. Jews were also collectively slandered by a leading British broadcaster, James O'Brien, on the LBC channel in London. And here in Australia, 10- and 11-year-old students from the Jewish day school Mt Scopus College, were verbally assaulted during an excursion at the Melbourne Museum, by students from another school who harassed them with chants of 'free Palestine' and called them 'dirty Jews". Rather than confronting Hamas' terrorism, the West is choosing the easy path of blaming Israel instead, taken in by false narratives, distorted reporting and blatant falsehoods. When this war ends, Israel may be battered, but it will survive - it always does. But I fear for the West. In its rush to appease populist outrage, leaders have abandoned their integrity and betrayed the very values they claim to uphold. This moral collapse doesn't just endanger Israel - it threatens the very soul of the West. Justin Amler is a policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC)
Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
In the current climate, the Coalition looks cooked
'We are in that situation with the Liberals,' with the electoral changeover to new generations of Australian voters, says Samaras. 'The Libs are extra vulnerable to takeover at the ballot box. If the teals can form a network or coalition or whatever you want to call it, they could be it. They could push the Liberals completely off the electoral map.' While there are fewer than 10 Liberal-held seats in the cities available for possible teal takeover, there are country seats that could be open to challenge by community independents like Helen Haines, who represents the predominantly rural Victorian seat of Indi. Rather than rage against climate realities and renewables investment, Haines is preoccupied with making the transition work for her constituents. She's proposed a 20 per cent share in the profits from big renewable projects for regional communities, for instance. Climate wasn't always a losing argument for the Coalition. It won some of the critical early battles of the climate wars. Barnaby Joyce was the original Coalition climate warrior. From the Nationals backbench, he illuminated the political pathway for Tony Abbott to follow. Climate scepticism worked for Tony 'climate change is crap' Abbott. It worked for Scott 'lump of coal' Morrison, until it did not. It did not work for Peter 'nuke 'em' Dutton. And it won't work for Sussan 'moderniser' Ley. If she goes there. But, thanks to the Nationals, it might not much matter. Because Barnaby, once again, is leading the Coalition into the rejection of climate change policy in all its manifestations. His current campaign is to abolish the Nationals' commitment to net zero. Which seems odd. Because he was the party's leader who signed on to net zero in a deal with then-prime minister Scott Morrison only four years ago. Even 'lump of coal' Morrison could see that Australia would be marooned, missing out on the global $US200 trillion ($311 trillion) renewables investment boom, unless it could commit to the bare minimum of plausible climate policy – net zero emissions by 2050. Such national responsibilities mean nothing to the rabble-rousing Joyce and company. The populist obscurantists in the Nats are more interested in incendiaries than investments. They only agreed to Morrison's net zero plan because he bribed them with some $30 billion in government spending promises plus an extra seat in the cabinet. But today there are no bribes on offer. Opposition parties have no access to the Treasury or seats in the cabinet. So Joyce is unchecked. He's been joined by his former rival for the Nationals leadership, Michael McCormack. They have enough internal support and momentum to succeed. The man supposed to be leading them, David Littleproud, is meekly following them. Not formally, not yet, but it seems inevitable that he will. His job is on the line otherwise. 'The Nats will be great,' says Samaras. 'They're not losing anything out of this. Their rural constituencies are older and their seats are safe.' Joyce & Co are fomenting a country-versus-city resentment – the countryside is being destroyed by toxic solar farms and fascist new power lines so that rich city investors can make money from them. But the Liberals? What do they do? They don't have a formal position at the moment. It's under review, and the party is divided. One argument is that they adopted net zero and lost anyway. So why not ditch it? The counter is that they didn't lose because of net zero, that it was overshadowed by an unpopular nuclear reactor plan. And that a party that aspires to government must have a credible climate and energy policy as a prerequisite to power. Loading But the Liberals face a wicked dilemma. With their junior Coalition partner exuberantly trampling climate change for the next three years, the Libs will have three options. One, join the Nats and suffer more electoral damage. The Liberals were all but driven out of the cities in the May election. Of the 88 seats classified by the Electoral Commission as metropolitan, Labor holds 71. The Liberals hold just nine. They can't aspire to government without a recovery in the cities. And if they embrace Barnaby's climate policy, they can pretty much forget about that. Two, the Libs can outline a separate policy and spend three years arguing with the Nats over it, which would be divisive and ugly. And how do you take two conflicting policies to an election? Three, the Libs can terminate the Coalition and go solo, much as Littleproud did by splitting with the Libs in the Eight-Day War in May. But that would be likely to mean being sentenced to permanent opposition – or oblivion – for both. The Libs don't have enough seats in their own right, and the Nationals don't have enough votes and rely on Liberal preferences. When Barnaby first launched the climate wars over a dozen years ago, they were directed against Labor. Today, the Nats' climate war is waged against the Liberals just as much. A war against the enemy has turned into a war against the supposed ally. It's not that Labor's renewables plan is rolling out smoothly. One of the gurus, Ross Garnaut, gave a damning speech this week calling the energy transition 'sick'. The entire national enterprise was 'on a path to comprehensive failure'. There is a big and rich political fight to be had. Not in raging against the reality of climate change or the advantages of energy transition, but in interrogating the government's execution of it. The smart course for the Coalition is not to attack Labor's goals but its incompetence in reaching them. A colleague of Kos Samaras, fellow Redbridge director and former Liberal campaign chief Tony Barry, sees the opportunity cost of the Nats' climate crusade: 'There are massive problems with the rollout for [Minister for Climate Change and Energy] Chris Bowen, and if Barnaby Joyce retired tomorrow he'd be beside himself. Barnaby keeps giving him a 'get out of jail' card.' Loading As the pollster for this masthead, Jim Reed of Resolve Strategic, puts it: 'The public debate about climate change is largely over, but the conversation about what to do about it, how urgently and at what cost still rages.' But a Coalition lost in delusion and distraction can't prosecute these real problems while it's caught up in ideological and irrelevant ones. 'The Liberals,' concludes Samaras, 'are in the killing zone'. It's just that, like the Black Knight, the Coalition seems unable to grasp the reality of its situation. As the victorious Arthur goes on his way, the Black Knight, now legless as well as armless, demands that the king come back and keep fighting. 'What are you going to do, bleed on me?' retorts Arthur.
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
Hope is not a plan: Public patients shouldn't be penalised
All of us hope that a diagnosis of cancer will never become part of our life's story. But we also know that if such a diagnosis does come, early detection and treatment offer a far better chance of survival and recovery. Since 2006, the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program has aimed to give Australians that better chance – initially for those aged 55 and 65 and today for everyone aged between 45 and 74 – with self-testing kits mailed out to those eligible across Australia every two years. In Victoria, statistics show that among those who die of cancer, bowel cancer is behind only lung cancer among men and lung and breast cancer among women. So the kits have the potential to save tens of thousands of lives. But that potential can only be harnessed if a positive test from the kit is followed by a timely examination and diagnosis, beginning with a colonoscopy. On Friday, this masthead's senior health reporter Henrietta Cook revealed that public hospital patients in Victoria are waiting up to nine months to be seen for the vital procedure. Given that the screening program recommends a colonoscopy within 30 days of any positive test result, time is being lost that could be the difference in successfully treating a life-threatening condition. Adjunct Professor Iain Skinner, a colorectal surgeon at Werribee Mercy Hospital, described the increased demand for colonoscopies as 'a challenge faced by many Victorian hospitals'. The Age recently reported that the Victorian Heart Hospital on Monash Health's Clayton campus is having to cut back on operating theatres and recovery beds only two years after it opened. While the hospital insisted the number of procedures performed would not be affected, cardiologists who agreed to speak to us under condition of anonymity said the cuts had already forced them to warn of delayed treatment. 'It's terrible from a patient perspective,' one said. 'The longer they wait, the worse their heart gets.' Victoria's growing population is one of the reasons that the state's government has embarked on a Big Build of transport infrastructure. But the health of those travelling around the state will not wait. Dr Roderick McRae, the state president of doctors' union the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation, argues 'there is a massive underinvestment in physical and mental healthcare across Victoria'.
