Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025

Dr RYAN (Kooyong) (16:23): I'd like to acknowledge that the government has concerns about podiatrists being registered in this fashion and that it feels that the work has not yet been done. I think I can speak on behalf of constituents who are podiatrists and who would argue that the work should have been done, that the work the government is doing on the extension of the scope of practice for many professionals in the health sphere is taking too long and that the work the government is doing to revise the PBS is taking too long.

We're already seeing the impact of that excessive duration of wait with the loss of agents like Zoladex from communities and people we care about, because pharmaceutical companies are now saying that the commercial imperative for marketing those sorts of agents in this country is not present for them. We're also hearing from constituents about their frustration with the HTA review and the time that has taken as well.

So I would argue that we have to move where we can, in increments where we can, on behalf of those people like podiatrists and exercise physiologists who feel that they've been asking for a very long time for their scope of practice and the funding for that to be extended and have not seen the government act on that to date. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): The question is that the amendments be disagreed to.