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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-06-23 Daily Xml
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PHARMACEUTICAL BENEFITS SCHEME

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (15:55): I am sure a number of members in this house would have received complaints from constituents regarding the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Although I am very grateful that we have such a scheme, there are obvious anomalies that need to be looked at. I was interested to receive recently a letter from the South Australian retired unionists group, who were very concerned about this issue. They say that in recent months the Australian government has been negotiating a transpacific partnership free trade agreement with the United States and a number of other countries in our region.

One area that they say is under negotiation is the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which currently ensures that many medications are available at an affordable cost. There are other issues that are involved in these negotiations, which I will go into later, but certainly for me as a local member the issue of people being able to get low cost, if not free, medication that they need is a very important one.

The South Australian retired unionists group has linked up with another group called Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network Incorporated, and this group has been around for quite some time trying to argue some of the issues it has with the US trade agreement in particular. It also points out that many common prescription medicines that are available are three to 10 times dearer in Australia than they are in places like the United States, so I think this certainly does need some following up.

The other thing pointed out by AFTINET is that there are a number of other issues of concern with regard to these negotiations. I understand the federal government is negotiating with the US, Chile, Peru, Brunei, Singapore, New Zealand and Vietnam with the aim to developing a multilateral agreement based on the bilateral agreements the US has with four of these countries.

The agenda will be quite large. There are issues regarding GE food labelling, obviously the pharmaceutical benefits and the no investor state dispute process. One of the things that I know would be of interest to the retired unionists, and certainly many people in this house, is the strong labour and environmental clauses that are in the agreement.

I understand that the agreement has weak labour and environmental clauses which are not enforceable. What the groups are saying is that it is really important that the Australian government recognise the need for International Labour Organization standards in the ILO conventions and also the strong environmental clauses to be respected in any of those negotiations, particularly the United Nations' environmental agreements with trade penalties for non-compliance.

I understand also that with the US being the largest producer of GE foods, it is particularly important that we maintain our position regarding genetically engineered food and labelling and also regulation of that food in the agreement. I am not sure how far these negotiations have gone, but I do commend particularly the SA retired unionist group for raising these issues, and also for providing me with a petition which they intend to present to the federal government asking that negotiations respect some of the good principles that we have here, and particularly look at the pharmaceutical benefits issue, and also enforcing appropriate labour rights and environmental protections.

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