STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Mr LAXALE (Bennelong) (13:55): If bulk-billing is the beating heart of Medicare, then the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is its bloodstream, quietly ensuring essential medicines are made affordable and accessible to every Australian. Recently, the health minister made a huge announcement that will benefit many. The PBS listing of immunotherapy cancer treatment Keytruda has been significantly expanded.

Keytruda is developed by MSD, a global biopharmaceutical company based in Macquarie Park in my electorate of Bennelong. For a first-of-its-kind listing, clinicians now have the option of prescribing the treatment for 17 cancer indications, approved off just one PBS application. Be it bile duct cancer, ovarian cancer or rare skin cancers such as Merkel cell carcinoma, Keytruda can now be accessed across 17 indications for just $25 a pop.

Without this new expanded listing, patients could be paying up to $14,800 per script. Labor has delivered 492 new listings since we came to government. Not only are we strengthening Medicare by adding new drugs to the PBS; we're also reforming it, allowing, for the first time, one PBS application to be used over multiple indications.

Compare our record on Medicare to that of the Liberals. They froze Medicare rebates for six long years, they ripped funding from public hospitals and they tried to introduce a GP tax on every Aussie. Labor loves Medicare.