QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr BUTLER (Hindmarsh—Minister for Disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Minister for Health and Ageing and Deputy Leader of the House) (15:03): Thank you to the member for Banks not just for the question but for his terrific advocacy for a stronger Medicare in his community. I'm pleased to say the bulk-billing rate in his electorate is now just shy of 90 per cent after our record investment.

I know he regularly plugs the benefits as well of cheaper medicines. For 80 years, Australians have enjoyed the fruits of one of Labor's great legacies: the PBS, which gives them access to the world's best medicines at affordable prices. Since we were elected four years ago, we've made 450 new or amended listings to the PBS.

Yesterday—just yesterday!—I was pleased to announce two new listings for blood cancer. We know, tragically, blood cancer kills more Australians than any other cancer type except lung, and one of those listings, Blincyto, is an amazing new immunotherapy that's going to give great new hope to blood cancer patients. Before yesterday, it would have cost them $230,000 for a course of treatment, but now it's available at just PBS prices.

We also listed Calquence, a daily tablet for patients with a new diagnosis of particular forms of leukaemia or lymphoma. Alona Robinson joined me yesterday at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where she'd received Calquence on a clinical trial. She's a mum of four, a grandmum of two and happily in remission for more than five years.

She told me how excited she was that others would now have access to this terrific life-saving medicine—we think about 1,200 others every single year. Before yesterday, they'd have been paying $7,000 a month for these tablets. Now they'll just pay PBS prices—and as you know, Mr Speaker, we've been making those PBS prices even cheaper every single year we've been in government.

In the past four years, Australians have saved almost $3 billion in co-payments at the pharmacy counter. Pensioners and concession-card holders have received 90 million additional scripts completely free of charge, which previously they'd have had to pay for, and their maximum co-pay of $7.70 has been frozen for the rest of the decade. Patients without a concession card would have been paying, this year, more than $50 for PBS scripts if we hadn't acted.

But, thanks to this government, they're now paying no more than $25 for their scripts—thanks to the latest cut we announced at the last election. These policies are obviously terrific for household budgets at a time of real cost-of-living pressure, but they also mean that more Australians are now filling the scripts their doctors say are important for their health, building a healthier Australia.

Mr Albanese: Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.