Labor

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24 June 2016

James Boyce Director, Communications & Government Relations Medicines Australia Level 1, 16 Napier Close Deakin ACT 2600 Dear Mr Boyce,

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the Medicines Australia 2016 Federal Election Questions. Please find Labor’s answers below. Yours sincerely,

ALP Information Services Unit Australian Labor Campaign Headquarters www.alp.org.au

Access – Medicines contribute to improved productivity and workforce participation. How will your party foster a vibrant and comprehensive PBS that provides people with universal access to the latest medicines when they need them to prevent treat and cure disease and deliver improved productivity, workforce participation and patients’ quality of life? The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) was first introduced by the Chifley Labor Government and has provided Australians with free or subsidised medicines for over 65 years. It has contributed significantly to the good health outcomes Australians enjoy and is a critical pillar of Australia’s world class health system. Labor’s support for the PBS remains unwavering. Medicines play a vital role in both treating and preventing illness. Labor’s strong and enduring commitment to universal health care and to the idea that health care access should not depend on wealth includes our support for the PBS.

Our National Platform commits us to ensuring all Australians get affordable, essential medicines through the PBS.

Over the next decade many of the new drugs that are expected to become available will be more specialised and targeted treatments, increasing pressure on the PBS to ensure Australia does not miss out on new medicines at the same time as maintaining a robust system for entry. This is especially so for cancer drugs and other drugs that treat life-threatening illnesses. Labor’s reforms have ensured the sustainability of the PBS to this point, and we will ensure the PBS gains from the best models overseas to respond to future challenges.

Contrary to repeated claims by Health Minister Sussan Ley, the Turnbull Government’s recent Budget confirmed plans to increase the cost of prescriptions by $5 for general patients and $0.80 for concession card holders, and to increase the threshold for the PBS Safety Net, which would result in higher prescription costs for some of the most vulnerable people in our society. A Shorten Labor Government will scrap the Liberals’ medicines price hike and ensure health care remains affordable for every Australian.

PBS process improvement – Our industry believes that more stakeholders should be involved in decisions about subsidising new medicines. How will your party ensure these stakeholders have a greater voice in the process?

Under Labor, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) and its sub-committees will continue to provide sponsors of medicines with an opportunity to respond to their evaluations and issues concerning the listing of new medicines. Sponsors of new medicines will continue to work with the Department of Health to negotiate pricing arrangements, once medicines are approved for listing. Labor believes that decisions about the listing of new medicines on the PBS benefit from stakeholder input.

Business environment – Given significant recent reform in the PBS, what will your party do to ensure policy stability and predictability to raise business confidence in this sector?

Labor will continue to consult with the pharmaceutical industry around future policy directions and reforms, in recognition that a partnership approach is more effective.

Australia offers, and under a Shorten Labor Government will continue to offer, a stable political and economic environment, a reliable legal framework and word-class science and medical research.

A Shorten Labor Government has committed to get businesses, universities and government working together to boost Australia’s investment in research and development, from 2.1 per cent to 3 per cent of GDP by 2030. Innovation – How will your party partner with the medicines industry to address the issue identified by the OECD about Australia’s poor performance in commercialising research?

Australia’s scientists and researchers lead the world. Labor believes Australia can also lead the world in successful commercial development of our new discoveries, inventions and research.

A Shorten Labor Government will invest in innovation and commercialisation, foster Australia’s entrepreneurial and start up culture and support our internationally renowned research institutions such as the CSIRO.

Labor will create a Regional Innovation Fund, which will kickstart a range of initiatives to expand the role of Australia’s regions in contributing to the national innovation effort.

The Regional Innovation Fund will, for example, invest in an expansion of the network of hubs and accelerators across the country, focussing on regional and rural sites. Labor will also support the continuation and expansion of existing university-based hubs and accelerators in metropolitan and outer-metropolitan universities with additional funding. University-based accelerators will be at the centre of this initiative; however we will remain open to other avenues to boost regional innovation activity.

Labor will boost Australia’s young aspiring entrepreneurial talent by providing income contingent loans to students to support their participation in university accelerators or similar incubators run by successful entrepreneurs.

Startup loans will be offered to 2,000 students and new graduates each year that want to establish a startup within a university-based (or similar) accelerator. The loan will cover the cost of the support provided to them by an accredited accelerator program and accredited non-award programs and initiatives, up to the maximum annual student contribution level under the HECS system. The Abbott-Turnbull Liberal Government has cut more than $3 billion from science, research and innovation – a devastating blow to the sector on which the jobs of the future depend.

The Abbott-Turnbull Government has cut $75 million from the Australian Research Council (ARC), which allocates funds for research in Australian universities, and $107 million from the Cooperative Research Centres, which bring together researchers and industry.

The National Science and Innovation Statement that Malcolm Turnbull announced in December made a commitment to funding long-term research infrastructure, but the Abbott-Turnbull Government’s actions do not match the rhetoric: the funding cuts to the CSIRO; to the former separate centre National ICT Australia (NICTA); and to the ARC have not been restored. The recent Budget only entrenched these cuts, making it clear that the Liberals have no intention of properly supporting Australian research.

A Shorten Labor Government will invest $250 million in the CSIRO to reverse the Liberals’ cuts and ensure the future of key national scientific infrastructure like ‘The Dish’ at Parkes and the RV Investigator. This is in addition to the $50 million Labor has already committed to the CSIRO for climate and reef science to protect the Great Barrier Reef. Labor established the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) program in 1990.

The CRC program has a global reputation as one of the most successful mechanisms for bringing researchers and end-users together to build sustained collaborations that deliver significant real world impacts.

The Abbott-Turnbull Government stripped $107 million from the CRC program over the 2014 and 2015 Budgets.

A Shorten Labor Government will boost CRC funding, to enable two additional rounds of funding to be delivered. This initiative – in combination with Labor’s significant commitments to other science and research measures – will go some way to fixing the damage the Liberals have inflicted on Australia’s innovation system. Only Labor will make the investments in innovation, infrastructure and our national institutions that will create the right ecosystem for invention, investment and commercialisation.

Investment - What will your party do to improve the incentives to attract foreign investment in Australia?

Labor has a long-standing commitment to trade liberalisation, and a strong track record of implementing reforms to boost Australia’s national savings and to ensure Australia is attractive as destination for inward investment.

The three most substantial decisions to reduce Australia’s trade barriers – in 1973, 1988 and 1991 – were all made by Labor.

In government, Labor has ensured trade agreements maintain community confidence and are in the national interest. Labor led the way in arguing against Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions with the Gillard Labor Government taking the decision not to include these provisions in trade agreements. The Abbott-Turnbull Government has presided over a slowing economy, a deteriorating trade balance and declining business investment while imposing new barriers against foreign investment.

The Abbott-Turnbull Government has shrouded trade negotiations in secrecy and has failed to consult meaningfully with Parliamentarians, stakeholders or the public. It has placed more emphasis on the quantity of trade deals rather than on their quality.

This Liberal Government has dismissed calls for greater transparency around trade. It has included ISDS provisions in several trade agreements, raising questions about the impact on policies such as Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Australia has recorded a trade deficit in all but three of the 32 months since the Abbott-Turnbull Government came to office. A Shorten Labor Government will pursue trade and investment policies which support the jobs and living standards of Australians – by opening up new markets, driving Australian exports into those markets, and attracting new investment into our economy.

Labor believes Australia should be at the forefront of health and medical research, and we proved this in government through a commitment of more than $3.5 billion in health and medical research funding. This included more than $700 million to build and upgrade health and medical research facilities across the country.

We also support the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) to provide a solid foundation to strengthen health and medical research and ensure that in the coming decades Australia leads the world in this sphere. Labor did attempt to make some changes to the way the MRFF will operate and we continue to believe that more rigour could be applied to its processes, including a greater role for the National Health and Medical Research Council. That said, we supported the Government’s legislation to establish the MRFF because we want to see more funding for health and medical research in Australia.

Clinical trials - While there is bipartisan support at the Commonwealth level for a national clinical trial framework, progress on implementation is glacial. What will your party do to implement the 11 recommendations of CTAG (2011) within the next term?

Labor created the Clinical Trials Action Group (CTAG) in 2009 to address shortcomings in Australia’s clinical trials environment and increase Australia’s competitiveness in the clinical trials sector. CTAG’s 2011 report identified 11 key recommendations and Labor began the process of progressing these recommendations through the National Health Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

Disappointingly, the Abbott-Turnbull Government has failed to significantly advance this process. A Shorten Labor Government will continue the work begun with the creation of CTAG to make Australia’s national clinical trial framework a reality.

Jobs - The medicines industry is a leading employer of STEM graduates. How will your party ensure there is an appropriate supply of future STEM graduates to support medical and R&D innovation? A Shorten Labor Government will return science and research – both pure and applied – to the heart of the national agenda. We will give our best and brightest people the equipment and the support they need.

When Labor was in government, we worked hard to build the research assets that a modern economy requires, boosting spending on science, research and innovation by more than a third to an annual total of almost $9 billion. Bill Shorten has announced an aspirational target for Australia to devote 3 per cent of our GDP to research and development by the end of the next decade.

Labor will provide 100,000 STEM Award Degrees – 20,000 a year for five years – which will provide a financial incentive for students to enrol in and complete a STEM undergraduate degree, in recognition of the significant public benefit of growing Australia’s STEM capacity. STEM Award Degree recipients will have their HECS debt written off upon graduation.

At the postgraduate level, our reforms in industry research collaboration have given research students invaluable access to companies working on real world problems, and we will continue down that path. Additionally, Labor's successful Researchers in Business scheme was gutted by the Liberals - we will aim to bring it back as resources become available. IP – How will your party ensure that Australia’s IP regime reflects world’s best practice to encourage innovation?

Intellectual property is a complex and changing area which involves trade-offs between different stakeholders and requires flexibility to deal with technological advancement and changing needs. Labor believes that changes to intellectual property rights and laws should only be made after a substantive and robust domestic debate, and should not be made as part of long-term bilateral trade agreements.

The Abbott-Turnbull Government has failed to analyse the economic and community impact of the more detailed intellectual property provisions it has negotiated in recent free trade agreements.