Portfolio — 23 March 2026

The Minister for Disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Minister for Health and Ageing and Deputy Leader of the House, Mr Butler, used a parliamentary debate on 23 March 2026 to advance a dual-track PBS argument: new listings extending therapeutic access to previously underserved patient groups, and sustained price controls delivering measurable cost-of-living relief.

The lead policy signal was the listing of Ultomiris for myasthenia gravis — the first new treatment for that condition in three decades — reducing patient cost from $25,000 per script to $25 for approximately 3,000 Australians whose symptoms can include severe impairment to walking, chewing and breathing [TA-260323-house-068fade26cde:s234]. Mr Butler framed this listing within a broader claim: more than 400 new medicines added to the PBS since 2022, a figure he presented as evidence of the government's sustained commitment to pharmaceutical access across a wide range of therapeutic conditions.

The affordability dimension of the argument drew on three specific price control commitments [TA-260323-house-068fade26cde:s234]: the pensioner co-payment locked at $7.70 for the decade; the general patient co-payment held at $25 — unchanged since 2004; and approximately 90 million free scripts delivered to pensioners and concession card holders since 2022. The cumulative saving Mr Butler cited was more than $2.3 billion at the pharmacy counter.

Together these figures constructed a cost-of-living framing for the PBS that extends beyond individual listings into systemic price discipline.

Today's contribution sits directly alongside Mr Butler's 1 March 2026 announcement of expanded PBS listings for Opdivo® and Yervoy® covering all advanced and rare cancers. That earlier announcement targeted high-cost oncology treatments; today's contribution addressed a neurological condition affecting a smaller but similarly high-cost patient cohort. The pattern across both establishes a consistent ministerial posture: PBS listings as both a clinical access instrument and an out-of-pocket cost intervention for patients who would otherwise face prohibitive prices without subsidy.