The agreement follows months of tension between Health Minister Mark Butler and pharmacy owners after the government’sdecision to double prescription lengthsfor 320 common medicines in last year’s budget.
The policy set Labor on a collision course with the Pharmacy Guild,an influential lobby group and one of the country’s biggest political donors,whose members would lose income from dispensing fees under the scheme.
Last year,Pharmacy Guild president Trent Twomey accused Labor of “not giving a shit”,and 200 pharmacy owners clad in white coats stormed out of question time yelling obscenities at government MPs during a protest at Parliament House. Butler returned serve,accusing the guild of running a “self-serving and cynical” campaign over its claims that 60-day scripts would lead to medicine shortages and aged care residents would miss out.
But in a sign of the guild’s lobbying power and Butler’s desire to bring pharmacies back onside,the start date for the new deal is only three months later than the lobby group had pushed for,while the $3 billion figure is close to the $3.3 billionit was calling for last August,before the negotiations began.
Labor had promised to reinvest the $1.2 billion it saved under the scheme back into pharmacies,but the guild claimed pharmacies’ losses were $4.5 billion – a $3.3 billion difference that it will now mostly recover.
Butler confirmed that the agreement would “provide up to an additional $3 billion for community pharmacy and cheaper medicines” but said full details – such as measures outlining how pharmacies will receive the funding – would be announced once the final clauses were settled.
“This agreement ensures Australians will continue to receive cheaper medicines thanks to the Albanese government,including guaranteeing our historic 60-day prescriptions reforms into the future,” he said.