SUBJECTS: 60-day dispensing; sexual assault at universities; cultural heritage laws.
LAURA JAYES, HOST: Welcome back. Well, a Senate showdown is on the cards for the last sitting day of parliament for this sitting period as Labor seeks to pass changes to the 60-day dispensing rules. The Coalition and the Pharmacy Guild say the changes may result in higher costs and pharmacy closures. Labor is supported by the Greens, meaning every crossbencher will be needed to block the policy. So Labor needs one crossbench support. Joining me live now is the Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek. This is all being negotiated behind the scenes by Mark Butler and others, but where do you see this ending up today, Minister?
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Well, of course, we’re very hopeful that the 60-day dispensing rules will be passed. This is simply a question of making medicine cheaper for 6 million Australians. Do Australians want to be able to get twice as much medicine – two months supply of medicine – for the price of one month’s supply of medicine? Of course they do.
It is bizarre that the Coalition keep talking about cost of living but they’re voting against cheaper medicines. They voted against cheaper energy prices. They’re voting against more affordable housing. If they really think Australians need a hand with the cost of living, then they should be voting for cheaper medicines.
I know that there are close to a million Australians who miss out on taking medicine every year, medicine that their doctor has recommended, because they can’t afford it. It is a tragedy to keep the cost of medicine higher than it needs to be. And think about it from the doctors’ perspective. The reason every doctor group supports this and every patient group supports it is because going to the doctor less often to get repeat prescriptions for chronic conditions that you might have experienced for years or even decades, that makes sense for patients, but it also takes pressure off doctors who are endlessly writing repeat prescriptions for conditions that don’t change.
LAURA JAYES: Well, the Pharmacy Guild, obviously, as you know, a pretty powerful lobby group, earlier this week they’re out there saying, well, for elderly Australians they’re going to start charging them a postage fee when they didn’t in the past. So whichever way you look at it, they’re scaring people, and there might be some blowback here.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, I hope there’s some blowback on the Pharmacy Guild that’s pushing that scare campaign. As taxpayers we save $1.2 billion from these changes. Every single dollar is going back into pharmacy. So every single dollar that’s saved goes back into pharmacy. And on top of that, patients are getting two months’ supply of medicine for the price of one month’s supply of medicine. This is actually a huge win for patients. It’s a huge win for doctors who are not writing out repeat prescriptions all the time. And for pharmacies, every single dollar is being re invested in pharmacy. We want pharmacists doing more complex work like increasing the number of immunisations they’re able to do. We want to re-invest that money in pharmacy, and instead of that the pharmacists are saying that they want patients to keep paying higher prices more often for their medicine. It makes no sense.
LAURA JAYES: Well, they’re saying they’ll be out of pocket in the short to medium term and that they simply can’t afford it and some might close their doors. Do you think that is just a scare campaign or do you accept that there are some that won’t be able to afford to remain trading with these changes?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I’ve had a lot of pharmacists in my electorate who’ve contacted me. I understand that they’re nervous. Many of them are paying very high rental fees to the big – you know, big Westfields and so on. I get that they are under financial pressure as it is. But every single dollar of this $1.2 billion is going back into pharmacy. Ordinary suburban pharmacy I think is being frightened a bit by their organisation, the Pharmacy Guild. I think they’ll find that these changes are being introduced slowly over more than a year. I think they’ll find a much lower impact than they’re being told by the Pharmacy Guild.
LAURA JAYES: Okay. If we could change topics, because this came across my desk: the government is establishing a working group to examine and look at the number of sexual assaults on university campuses in Australia. Has this been a problem for some time or has something happened more recently that the federal government has found that they need to do more?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: This has been a problem since I was at university, Laura. And I think that’s the great tragedy of it, isn’t it – that we have known for decades that university students and staff have been assaulted on university campuses. Of course they should be safe there. It’s a workplace, it’s a place of study. And universities have been put on notice now for years through the safety surveys that have been done in the past that there are too many assaults on campus. These are huge organisations with a duty of care to their students and to their staff, and they need to do better. They need to do better to keep people safe on campus.
LAURA JAYES: Finally before I let you go, obviously the cultural heritage laws that were updated from 1970 in WA have now been scrapped. There was a lot of blowback there for the state government. Do you accept that these laws as they were operating were a bit of overreach, was a bit of overcorrection after the Juukan Gorge disaster?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, look, I’m not going to give a commentary on the West Australian laws, but I will talk a little bit about the need to protect cultural had heritage. After Juukan Gorge, the destruction of that sacred place – 46,000-year-old sacred place – was a tragedy. It attracted the attention of the world. People couldn’t believe that an advanced country like Australia could allow the destruction of a 46,000-year-old sacred place. I mean, I would be like Egypt allowing the blowing up of the pyramids. Like, it is a shocking thing to think that that happened.
But the thing that’s really shocking about it is no-one broke any laws. It was completely the wrong thing to do, but it was allowed under the laws that existed at the time. So of course we need to update our laws. The Western Australian government has scrapped the original set of laws that they were intending to introduce. They’ve gone back to the earlier set of laws, but they have made additional changes that give a stronger voice to First Nations people in protecting cultural heritage.
I think it’s really important to remember that this cultural heritage is not just significant for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia; it’s significant for all of us. It’s part of our story as a nation. And that means that we need to make sure that at state and territory level that the laws are strong and improved. The laws that allowed the destruction of Juukan Gorge shouldn’t be allowed to stand, and we need to look at our Commonwealth laws as well, and we’re doing that.
LAURA JAYES: Just one final one here: Juukan Gorge was of national significance, as you say. Then why should artefacts like and sacred places like Juukan Gorge be left up to being protect by state and territory law? Shouldn’t this be something that is looked at by the Commonwealth or under the Commonwealth jurisdiction?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, well, I think it makes sense to have the states and territories be the ones that broadly look after cultural heritage, including First Nations heritage. It makes sense for them to be doing the bulk of the work. They’re making most of the decisions about development and land use. But having Commonwealth laws that provide a sort of backstop protection, an additional layer of assurance, that’s been the way we’ve operated up till now, and that’s the way we are looking to proceed as we update our Commonwealth laws as well. We don’t want to duplicate what the states and territories are doing. We don’t want to adopt state and territory laws, but we do need to have stronger commonwealth protections as well.
LAURA JAYES: Okay. So fair to say that you’re looking at this after the events over the last couple of months and years?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, indeed the previous government in responding to the Juukan Gorge inquiries, the previous Environment Minister Sussan Ley began a process of working with the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance, which is a sort of umbrella organisation of more than 30 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups from around Australia, working with them to look at how we strengthen the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, which is the Commonwealth law that applies in this case. Those laws are a few decades old and, again, we’ve seen some great examples of where those laws could be improved to give stronger assurance.
LAURA JAYES: Tanya Plibersek, thanks so much for your time, I appreciate it.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Always a pleasure to talk to you, Laura. Thank you.
