Television interview with Minister Butler, Sunrise - 20 March 2025

MATT SHIRVINGTON, HOST: In a major announcement overnight, the Albanese Government has revealed they're slashing the cost of prescription medications even further. The maximum cost of PBS medicines will be cut to just $25 per script, the lowest price in 20 years. It's a move that could save Australians more than $200 million each year. And Health Minister Mark Butler joins us now from the Gold Coast. Great to have you with us. So how much should we expect to save?
 
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: More than $200 million a year. And that's on top of the $1.3 billion, the first four instalments in our cheaper medicines measures have already saved Australians at the pharmacy counter. The beauty of this Shirvo is that cheaper medicines aren't just good for the hip pocket and the household budget, although of course, they obviously are, they're also good for health because too many Australians have been telling us that they haven't been filling the scripts that their doctors have said are important for their health because of cost.
 
SHIRVINGTON: Yeah, it's not good, is it? I mean, we're all feeling it right now. This doesn't come into effect until January 26th. Why the delay?
 
BUTLER: We've got measures that are coming into effect this year. As I said, this will be the fifth instalment. Without our measures, the maximum cost of a script next year would have skyrocketed to $50. So more than twice what it will end up being if we're elected, which is $25. We've got pensioners getting tens of millions of additional free scripts, general patients, their maximum cost will be half what it otherwise would have been. And finally, we're able to get 60-days supply of many common medicines for just the price of a single script. This has all been really important at a time of cost-of-living pressure. But I know as the Health Minister is also really good health policy.
 
SHIRVINGTON: Yeah, it's also being supported by the Coalition as well, which is good. I read this article. The American medical giants are reportedly calling on Donald Trump to impose new tariffs on us because of the PBS subsidising medicines. Are you worried the US president will punish us for cheaper medicines here?
 
BUTLER: Of course we're concerned about this. This is not a new position from Big Pharma in the US. Obviously, they want to sell their medicines at top dollar, we want to make them cheaper, there's an inherent conflict there. They did this when John Howard was negotiating the US Free Trade Agreement, and we, as the Labor Party, insisted on strong protections going into our Parliament to ensure the PBS was not up for negotiation. I can assure your viewers, under a Labor Government, there is no way the PBS will be up for negotiation with any overseas government.
 
SHIRVINGTON: Okay. Health Minister Mark Butler, thank you so much for your time.