STATEMENTS BY SENATORS
Senator ANANDA-RAJAH (Victoria) (13:15): Two-thirds of Australian women of childbearing age are on some type of contraception. It took this Labor government 30 years to list new contraceptive pills on the PBS. Yaz, Yasmin and Slinda are just some examples.
Is that job done? Can we all say, 'Job done—women are getting what they need'? The problem with the pill is that the pill is like old tech.
It's only about 92 per cent effective. The reason for that is simple. People forget.
They may have problems with absorption due to vomiting or diarrhoea, or they may be taking other drugs, like antibiotics, that interact with the pill and thereby make it less effective than what it says on the label. So, in the real world, the effectiveness of the pill is 92 per cent or probably a bit less than that. But there is an alternative, and the alternative has been backed in by this Albanese Labor government.
Long-acting reversible contraceptives, also known as implants or IUDs, are far more effective than the pill. In fact, they're 99 per cent effective. They are so effective that they are regarded as set-and-forget contraception.
With the work that we have done, these will now be heavily subsidised, saving women around $400 per year—significant! But I have other concerns. State governments around the country, including Victoria, are moving to allow pharmacists to prescribe or initiate the pill.
There are clear health risks associated with the pill. They are well recognised. Thrombosis is the principal one.
So is stroke. Putting that aside, the content that I have with the pharmacy driven model is that it will skew contraception even further towards the pill, rather than long-acting reversible contraceptives. The issue here is that unintended pregnancies are a huge issue in Australia.
About 40 per cent of pregnancies are unintended. That equates to about 200,000 pregnancies a year being unintended, meaning unplanned or mistimed. Women in regional Australia are nearly 1½ times more likely to have an unintended pregnancy.
Half of those pregnancies end up in a live birth. About a third end up with an abortion, and we know that surgical abortion in particular is not easy in this country. Having an unplanned or unintended pregnancy is not without cost.
There are direct healthcare costs, and then there are indirect costs—lost wages, needing government support, employer benefits and sometimes marital conflict and mental health impacts. When you quantify it, the number is in the order of around $7.2 billion, adding health costs and non-healthcare costs together. So I am concerned that state governments are giving the green light to allow pharmacists to initiate the pill.
It will skew contraception towards the pill when we know that there are more effective types of contraception that women can access. I would urge all women to do your research. Go to credible, reputable websites, like the Jean Hailes Foundation or MSI Australia, and certainly go and see your GP and have a more fulsome discussion about the variety of contraception that is now available and much more affordable to you.
That is best done with your GP, one on one. My personal view, as a former practising doctor, is that the pill or any type of contraception should be initiated by a doctor, and then, once you're stable, it can be continued—particularly the pill—with a pharmacy. Let's not get this model wrong from the very beginning.