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) (14:56): Thank you to the member for Macnamara for his question but also for being such a huge supporter of our policies to make medicines cheaper and cheaper. Like everyone on this side, the member is so fiercely proud of that great Labor legacy the PBS, which for 80 years has given Australians access to the world's best medicines at affordable prices.

That mission of Ben Chifley remains as fresh today as it was 80 years ago. Not every brand launched in the 1940s is able to keep its freshness. Some start to seem a little bit stale, and sometimes even their greatest supporters suggest there's the need for a wholesale rebranding exercise for some of those brands.

But I can assure the House we won't be rebranding the PBS because it continues to deliver for Australians month in, month out unlike some of those other brands launched in the 1940s. Since we came to government five years ago, or almost five years ago, we have launched more than 460 new medicines on the PBS. This Wednesday, on 1 July, we'll list another 10.

It will be a blockbuster month. We'll be listing new life-changing medicines for a whole range of conditions including lung cancer, breast cancer, bile duct cancer, lymphoma, growth hormone deficiency, anaphylaxis and a whole bunch of others as well as type 1 diabetes and, importantly, severe asthma. Asthma impacts about one in 10 Australians, and as many as one in 10 of those have a severe form of the condition.

Around 100 people every day, on average, are hospitalised because of asthma. While deaths have halved since the late 1980s, we still have about 500 Australians losing their lives to the condition every single year. It is one of the highest death rates in the world.

The PBS listing on Wednesday of Tezspire is going to make a huge difference to all of that—a huge difference to patients like 22-year-old Chloe Thompson, for whom every breath is a battle. She says that living with severe asthma means waking up multiple times in the night, struggling to breathe. She's one of many thousands whose asthma simply can't be controlled by inhalers alone.

Their lungs are constantly inflamed, putting them at risk of repeated attacks. But, from Wednesday, these patients will have access to potentially life-saving relief with this treatment Tezspire, a breakthrough injection that is administered once every four weeks. Without the PBS listing, they would be paying as much as $1,600 every time they had an injection.

Now, they'll just pay PBS prices, delivering real change to Chloe's life and building a healthier Australia.