Having left it to the last day both the Upper House and Lower House chambers were sitting in August, to spring what the Opposition obviously thought was a clever raid on Labor's legion holding the Senate, the Liberals smugly alerted the media to their intention to save pharmacists across Australia from a non-existent threat. Rather swiftly the plan began to go awry.
However Opposition forces rallied.
As Business of the Senate a postponement notice was promptly lodged ie., Notice of Motion No. 1 (to disallow government dispensing reforms making medicines cheaper for six million Australians) in the name of Shadow Minister for Health Liberal Senator Anne Ruston and others, seeking postponement to 4 September 2023.
Then the wheels spectacularly fell off the Liberal Party chariot......
The Guardian, extracts from Live News, 10 August 2023:
15.59 AEST
What happened in the Senate today
This is for those who have asked me what was going on with all that procedure because it was a bit to keep track of.
Yesterday the Coalition gave notice it was going to move a disallowance motion to stop the 60-day dispensing changes coming in from 1 September.
It had to be moved today, because the parliament doesn’t resume until 4 September, after the changes came into effect.
At one point, the Coalition thought it had the numbers to make this happen, or at least could spook the government into thinking it had the numbers to make it happen, and force the government to delay the start date itself.
Along came the Greens who said, actually, no thank you to the disallowance motion, we have been chatting to the government and they are bringing negotiations on the next community pharmacy agreement forward by a year and that is what we wanted.
So that meant the Coalition needed to get all the remaining crossbenchers on board to beat the government on numbers.
The government needed the Greens to all show up in the chamber and one other crossbench MP. Cue late night chats and Mark Butler emerges this morning on the interview circuit saying “watch what happens in the Senate, but we have had VERY PRODUCTIVE chats with the crossbench”.
Very productive chats in that context is “we have the support we need, but can’t say so officially”.
The Coalition, realising it is about to lose, then tried to delay the disallowance motion, pushing it into the next sitting.
Labor, who wanted it dealt with once and for all, decided, actually no, we ARE going to have that disallowance motion today, senate what do you think? And all the senators who were voting with Labor on the motion agreed, meaning it the Coalition couldn’t delay it.
BUT (continued in next post):
Updated at 16.15 AEST
16.03 AEST
How Labor 'adopted' the disallowance motion – and defeated it
(Continued from previous post)
It is very difficult to move another senator’s disallowance motion and shadow health minister Anne Ruston wasn’t moving it (because the Coalition wanted it delayed). Labor tried to force it, but couldn’t because it wasn’t their motion.
So in a bunch of boring procedural motions, Labor managed to de-couple the motion from Anne Ruston’s name, making it an orphan.
The poor little orphaned disallowance motion was sent into the senate orphanage as as a delayed motion to wait out question time, when SURPRISE, it was adopted by Labor senator Louise Pratt.
Before it even had time to see its new bedroom, Labor called to suspend standing orders so it could call it on for a vote, where it was once again centre stage, despite Liberal senator Simon Birmingham objecting very loudly.
But this time all the procedural ducks were in a row, the motion was in Pratt’s name, so Labor had control and a vote was called.
And the disallowance motion was decided in the government’s favour – 33 votes to 28.
Which means that the two-for-one prescriptions slated to begin on 1 September will go ahead, the disallowance motion is defeated and this probably won’t be an issue again until six months time when the next tranche of medications join the list.
We hope that little motion gets to live out its dreams in the hansard now.
Updated at 16.20 AEST
16.34 AEST
Opposition to try to disallow 60-day medicine move again in September
Bridget McKenzie, the Nationals leader in the Senate, has said the opposition will launch a further attempt to disallow the government’s 60-day pharmacy dispensing changes when parliament returns in September.
On Thursday, the Senate voted down a Coalition push to tear up Labor’s changes.
McKenzie, speaking to the ABC, said the opposition had already moved to try to disallow it again.
We have lodged this afternoon another disallowance for this mechanism. This highlights for the government that we are very very serious, it is not good enough to say is not going to have a negative impact, the people’s healthcare delivery and particularly in the regions won’t be impacted when it actually will.
Updated at 16.41 AES
The 60-day script dispensing reform is due to commence on 1 September 2023 and the Senate Chamber does not sit again until 4 September 2023.
