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  • Tony Abbott and Peter Dutton joint doorstop interview, Brisbane - Labor’s proposed changes to the PBS; NBN; welfare reform; Julia Gillard’s fake fight with her “extreme” coalition partner; border protection; Campbell Newman

    01/04/11

    E&OE……………………….…………………………………………………………………

    TONY ABBOTT:

    I’m just going to say a bit about the PBS and I’m going to ask Peter Dutton to say a bit about the PBS, Martin Cross to say a bit about the PBS, then there’s a few other issues that I might have a little bit to say about and if there are any questions well, fire away.

    Look, the PBS is one of the absolute pillars of the Australian health system and the PBS, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, is under a sneak attack from the Gillard Government. Changes that were just hinted at the other day but which are already making a difference to people’s access to medicine mean that rather than be a demand driven programme, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is becoming a budget limited programme. You’ll only be able to get new drugs onto the PBS if there are commensurate savings and that’s why recommendations from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee that new drugs are cost effective have been simply ignored by this Government.

    So these changes, these revolutionary changes are basically going to deny sick people the medicines they need. Sick people are going to be denied the medicines they need because the Gillard Government has wasted so much money. It’s currently wasting more than $50 billion on the National Broadband Network, it’s previously wasted billions and billions on overpriced school halls and pink batts that burn in your roof and, because this government is wasting money, now sick people are not going to have access to the medicines that they need. This is a very serious development for Australia’s health system and I think it’s very important that people understand just what this government is doing without any proper announcement and without nearly enough public debate.

    I am going to ask Peter Dutton to say a few words and then I’m going to throw to Martin Cross and before I throw to Martin, I should just say thank you to Martin for hosting us here at the Alphapharm factory. This is one of the most important parts of the PBS. This factory produces about three billion tablets a year, it’s probably the largest single pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in this country. Pharmaceutical manufacturing is actually one of our most sophisticated and largest export industries and obviously these changes to the PBS aren’t going to be good for pharmaceutical manufacturing in this country either.

    Peter?

    PETER DUTTON:

    Thanks Tony. Firstly I want to say thank you very much to Martin and to the staff here at Alphapharm. Companies like Alphapharm add an incredible amount to the industry and to our country. They export in a way that not many other industries are able to; the way in which they value add really is something that we should be protecting, yet Julia Gillard seeks to pull companies like this down.

    It doesn’t make any sense for Julia Gillard to deny sick people medicines. We have an ageing of our population and we want to keep people well and we want to keep them wherever possible out of hospitals and yet Julia Gillard, because she spent all the money in other areas, is now penny pinching from our medicine scheme.

    The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is one of the best in the world. It operates in Australia very efficiently and if Julia Gillard continues to waste money, if the consequence of that is that we deny sick people and particularly older Australians and pensioners the drugs that they need then we aren’t going to keep life expectancy where it is in this country and we aren’t going to get better health outcomes for sick Australians and I think a lot more attention needs to be paid to the fact that every decision that’s made in Australia today, for the first time in our country’s history, in relation to medicines will be a political decision. Every decision to list a medicine now in Australia for the first time in our history will be based on a political decision and that is not the right way for the process to operate.

    So, we will keep the pressure on the Government and we will support the industry. We will support cheap medicines going to Australians who need them the most and we will hold to account a government that has wasted billions of dollars, and it’s now pensioners and sick Australians who are paying the price for Julia Gillard’s waste and mismanagement.

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Martin?

    MARTIN CROSS:

    Thank you. First of all could I thank both Tony and Peter for coming to the Alphapharm facility here today to see what we do. We are all about both the health and the wealth of the nation. It’s a very, very important facility for the health of the nation. Australians are lucky to have the third highest life expectancy in the world and a lot of that is driven by the availability of pharmaceuticals. We are also part of the leading manufactured goods export industry in Australia, more than cars, more than wine and yet unfortunately now for the first time in many years we’ve seen a decline in the amount of exports coming out of Australia. A lot of this is being driven by the fact that we just do not have policy stability. These plants require a lot of long term investment and it’s very, very difficult to do that unless we have policy certainty and stability in this industry and unfortunately we keep on having reform upon reform upon reform and it really is undermining what’s going on here.

    This is such an important part of Australia’s life. The PBS is a national treasure and the companies that provide the medicines to the PBS are part of the state of both the health and the wealth of the nation and we really do need to make sure this continues.

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Thanks Martin.

    Ok, well just a couple of other things if I may. The Prime Minister made a speech last night where she again claimed that the Greens were an extreme party. Well, if they’re so extreme why did she form a government with them? I think what we’re really seeing is just a fake fight; a phony lover’s tiff. The fact is that Labor is in office but the Greens are in power. Julia Gillard might be in the Lodge but Bob Brown is the real prime minister of this country. Certainly when it comes to things like the carbon tax it’s the Greens’ policies rather than the Government’s policies which we are really seeing come to the fore.

    We’re here at the Alphapharm plant. Alphapharm is just one of the many, many tens of thousands of businesses that will be affected by a carbon tax. This manufacturing plant uses about $1 million worth of electricity every year. That price is going to go up and up and up and up. We’ll see something like a 25 per cent increase in electricity prices as a result of Julia Gillard’s carbon tax and that obviously has a big, big impact on the costs of a factory like this, a factory which has to compete on a global scale.

    The other thing that the Prime Minister has been talking about today is that it’s going to be a very tough budget. Well, haven’t we heard that before? Every year the Government comes out and announces that this year there’s going to be a tough budget and every year they wimp out of the hard decisions. Now, I certainly think we do need some tough decisions and the toughest decision that this government really should make is to dump the National Broadband Network. We’re seeing more and more evidence that the National Broadband Network is going to be an expensive white elephant. We don’t need unnecessary new government monopolies, particularly when we’ve got a government which can’t afford to put new drugs on the PBS.

    The final point I want to make is that the Government really should finally be honest with the Australian people, admit that this East Timor detention centre is never going to happen. If the Prime Minister wants to have offshore processing she should just pick up the phone to the President of Nauru. It’s an Australian-funded centre, the taxpayers of Australia paid for the existing facility on Nauru. Let’s make the most of it, let’s use it again, let’s help to stop the boats by reopening the centre in Nauru and I call on the Prime Minister to pick up the phone. Why is she too proud to pick up the phone to the President of Nauru, get that centre open again which did so much to stop the boats?

    QUESTION:

    What did you make this morning of the NBN’s problems with getting a good price for their latest contract?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    I think it was always very unrealistic to expect that the NBN would be built for the price that the Government said. This was always going to be school halls on steroids, we were always going to see massive blowouts in costs and we’re seeing that today.

    QUESTION:

    Some have criticised the policy released yesterday saying it’s another recycle, it’s about your fourth attempt at Work for the Dole. What do you say to that?
    TONY ABBOTT:

    Well, I’ve been talking about these subjects ever since I became Employment Services Minister back in 1998 but there is still a lot more to be done and if the Government is serious about replacing an entitlement mindset with a work mindset it will take seriously the policy proposals I’ve put forward.

    QUESTION:

    How’s the feedback been from people in the disability sector to toughening up that area of it?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Well, so far I‘ve had a lot of people say ‘about time’. I think that the Australian public are decent and generous people who want to do the right thing by people who really can’t work. Byt there are a lot of people who could work with the right support and that’s what I think should be given to them.

    QUESTION:

    You’ve answered it in part; do you think Julia Gillard has it in her to deliver this tough budget, finally?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    I think that this is a government which can’t be trusted with money and I think that the last thing we’ll see is the kind of financial discipline, the kind of fiscal responsibility that the country needs. As I said, we’ve got a Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme which can no longer afford the drugs that sick people need, and it can’t afford the drugs that sick people need because so much money is being wasted on white elephants like the National Broadband Network, the overpriced school halls and the burning pink batts. Now, the Government has got to get its spending priorities right and that means stopping these wasteful projects so that sick people can get the drugs they need.

    QUESTION:

    The PBS is obviously very expensive; what sort of increases are you willing to make towards it?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    There’s an established process in place. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee looks at applications for listing, it looks at the medical benefits, it looks at the cost, it does a very sophisticated cost-benefit analysis and, on the basis of that analysis, it makes recommendations to the Government. Now, previously those recommendations were always accepted. Those recommendations in that system is at the heart of the success of our health system but this is a government which has torn up a system that works. It’s radically changed the PBS from a demand driven to a budget limited programme and that’s going to mean sick people don’t get the medicine they need.

    QUESTION:

    Peter, can I just ask you what you made of the local controversy in terms of hospitals worried about more money going onto administration rather than to doctors and patients?

    PETER DUTTON:

    Yeah well, I think most Queenslanders now are starting to ask the question why is it that hospital administrators and Queensland Health are exempt from trying to put forward savings for budgets when the state government under Anna Bligh are proposing to rip money out of wards, off frontline services that doctors and nurses are delivering. Why is it that the Labor Government, just like New South Wales Government, just like Julia Gillard’s Government, has got it so wrong in terms of their priorities when it comes to money? How does it make any sense to rip money away from doctors and nurses to employ extra health bureaucrats? That’s part of the reason why we’re not seeing real reform under Julia Gillard at the moment, and sending good money after bad into Queensland Health by employing more bureaucrats and less doctors, nurses and beds – people just understand that Labor just cannot manage health.

    QUESTION:

    The figure touted was $30 million spent on outside experts; is it hard to quantify whether they are worth it or not? I mean, from outside it might be hard to say whether that figure’s worth it or not?

    PETER DUTTON:

    Well Tom, $34 million is the saving that the Princess Alexandra Hospital, just one hospital, needs to find and yet we understand that $30 million is being spent on outside services that have been contracted to Queensland Health. If the Queensland Health Department and if Anna Bligh can spend $30 million on consultants, why is she ripping $34 million out of doctors and nurses and beds at the PA Hospital in Brisbane?

    QUESTION:

    Mr Abbott, before you go, you met with Campbell Newman this morning, had coffee with him. He’s fairly well known for, you know, his efforts during the floods and now the recovery. Now that he’s running for a state seat do you think he will take his eye off the ball a little bit?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    I think Campbell Newman quite properly is proposing to resign as Lord Mayor to let someone else take over that job to continue the good work that he has been doing because he doesn’t want to neglect the Lord Mayoralty as part of his campaign for a state seat and to become premier. No, I think this is typical of Campbell: he’s doing the honourable thing, he’s doing the right thing. He’s been a really outstanding Lord Mayor of Brisbane and I think he is going to make a great Premier.

    QUESTION:

    So, this morning Mr Newman’s been quoted saying that he’s going to scrap a lot of current state policies. Did you discuss any policies this morning?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Mostly it was just an opportunity for me to congratulate Campbell. I think it takes a lot of guts to leave a very prominent position where he could have continued for a long time but to do it for the sake of the state. I think this is a man who has put his career on the line. He’s put his life on hold to do the right thing by the people of Queensland and I really admire him for that.

    Thank you.

    [ends]
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