New Generation Medicines Added To The PBS

 

THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP

Minister for Health

MEDIA RELEASE

30 June 2013

NEW GENERATION MEDICINES ADDED TO THE PBS

A new medicine that can significantly extend the life of people with deadly melanoma (skin cancer) has been approved for inclusion in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Minister for Health Tanya Plibersek said the inclusion of ipilimumab, sold as Yervoy^® on the PBS would save patients requiring the treatment more than $110,000 a year on average.

“Australia has the highest skin cancer incidence rate in the world, with one in 17 Australians at risk of contracting the disease,” Ms Plibersek said.  

“While prevention is always the best option, the PBS listing of ipilimumab is a major step forward for people who have developed malignant melanoma.

“It is the first in a new class of medicines for melanoma and the first effective treatment in over a decade.”

In clinical trials, more than 60 per cent of patients with very advanced melanoma who were treated with ipilimumab were still alive after one year and notably, some 10 per cent of them were still alive after five years.

A new and effective drug for treating prostate cancer, abiraterone (Zytiga^®) will also be listed on the PBS. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in Australian men, with about 20,000 new cases diagnosed each year.  

“The PBS listing of abiraterone will benefit more than 1,000 Australians each year who would otherwise have to pay around $27,000 a year to access the drug.  This medicine offers an important treatment option for patients who are not well enough to tolerate further chemotherapy,” Ms Plibersek said.

Subsidies for vinorelbine (Navelbine®) which treats advanced breast cancer will also be extended to allow the drug to be used when other therapies have failed.

Provided orally, vinorelbine offers an important treatment option for patients but currently costs around $17,314 for an average of six prescriptions a year.

The new subsidies for these three cancer medicines will cost the Australian Government more than $430 million over four years.  

“Cancer is the number one cause of sickness and death in this country and fighting it has always been a top priority for this government,” Ms Plibersek said.

“With these new listings the Government has committed around $3.9 billion to improve the detection and treatment of cancer, including nearly $2 billion on subsidies for new cancer medicines since 2007. This brings the number of new or amended listings subsidised for cancer treatment since 2007 to 36, for 17 different types of cancer.”

More than a hundred thousand Australians will also benefit from the extension of PBS subsidies for a new generation oral anticoagulant medicine, on the PBS.

Rivaroxaban – marketed as Xarelto® – will soon be subsidised as a treatment for the prevention of stroke in patients with irregular heartbeat and treatment of blood clots in the lungs and legs.  

Irregular heartbeat or non-valvular atrial fibrillation is common among older people and increases the risk of severe stroke.  

The extension of the PBS subsidy will cost the Australian Government more than $450 million over four years and will benefit around 120,000 patients per year. Without PBS subsidy, rivaroxaban cost around $1200 per year for the average patient.

Ms Plibsersek said two drugs used to terminate pregnancy for medical reasons would also be available through the PBS from 1 August 2013.

Mifepristone (Linepharma®) and misoprostol (GyMiso200®) will be subsidised for medical terminations up to 49 days of gestation.

“While termination of pregnancy is always difficult, the listing of these drugs provides women and their doctors with greater choice at an affordable price,” Ms Plibersek said.

A total of 17 new and amended PBS listings will come into effect between 1 August and 1 October this year at a cost to the Government of almost $1 billion over four years. Almost 350,000 people a year will benefit.

Patients will only have to pay $5.90 or $36.10 per month to be treated with these medicines.  

“These listings reflect the Government’s continuing commitment to consumers and industry to ensure that effective medicines are readily available to Australians as soon as possible after they are proven effective,” Ms Plibersek said.

“We are able to provide these medicines at a subsidised price because of our diligent work to ensure that the PBS also provides good value for taxpayers and is sustainable.”

 

Details of changes to the PBS 1 August to 1 October 2013

 New listings

·        ipilimumab (Yervoy^®) - for the treatment of certain types of malignant melanoma

·        abiraterone (Zytiga^®) - for the treatment of prostate cancer

·        mifepristone (Linepharma^®) and misoprostol (GyMiso200^®) - for the termination of pregnancy for medical reasons in women who are up to 49 days of gestation

Amended and extended listings

·        vinorelbine (Navelbine^®) - for the treatment of advanced breast cancer, to extend the current listing to include treatment after failure of standard prior therapy

·        botulinum toxin type A (Botox^®) – for the treatment of urinary incontinence, to extend the current listing to include patients with specific neurological conditions, such as multiple sclerosis and adult spina bifida

·        cephalexin (various brands) - for use as an antibiotic in the treatment of urinary tract infection, to amend the current listing to increase the maximum quantity and number of repeats available

·        corifollitropin alfa (Elonva^®) - for use as part of infertility treatment in women, to extend the current listing to remove the weight restriction

·        diazepam (Orion Diazepam Elixir^®) - for the treatment of chronic spasticity in children, to extend the current listing to include an oral solution

·        imatinib (Glivec^®) - for the treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumour, to extend the current listing to change the maximum duration of treatment to three years

·        lacosamide (Vimpat^®) - for the treatment of epilepsy, to extend the current listing to remove a restriction for continuation of treatment and amend the listing to a Streamlined Authority

·        lenalidomide (Revlimid^®) - for the treatment of patients with a rare blood and bone marrow disorder (a certain type of myelodysplastic syndrome)

·        risedronate (Actonel^®) - for the treatment of osteoporosis, to extend the current listing to include patients that meet certain age and bone mineral density criteria

·        rivaroxaban (Xarelto^®) - for the prevention of stroke in patients with irregular heartbeat (non-valvular atrial fibrillation)

·        rivaroxaban (Xarelto^®) - for the treatment of blood clots in the lungs (pulmonary embolism) and prevention of recurrent blood clots in the legs and lungs (venous thromboembolism)

·        sorafenib (Nexavar^®) - for the treatment of a type of liver cancer, to amend the current listing to a Streamlined Authority

·        trimethoprim (various brands) - for use as an antibiotic in the treatment of recurrent urinary tract infections, to amend the current listing to increase the maximum quantity and number of repeats available

All PBS listings and price changes are subject to final arrangements being met by the suppliers of the medicines.

For all media inquiries, please contact the Minister's Office on 02 6277 7220

 

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott caught out charging Australian taxpayers for his own book promotion expenses

On 28 July 2010 ABC The Drum raised the matter of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s alleged misuse of parliamentary entitlements in 2009 to promote his book, Battlelines.

The initial Abbott response contained in that article was:

A spokesman for Tony Abbott dismissed the allegations as a smear campaign." All travel undertaken by Mr Abbott has been within the entitlement. This is a blatant attempt by Labor to smear and mislead."

However, documents obtained under Freedom of Information found at Tony Yegles’ Scribd account tell another story.

Dept of Finance to Mr Tony Abbott - 19 August 2010 by Tony Yegles

Peta Credlin to Dept of Finance - 29 October 2010 by Tony Yegles

Gary Gray Special Minister of State to Mr Abbott - 10/11/2011 by Tony Yegles

Less than two months after receiving the first letter from the Dept. of Finance and Deregulation and, in the same month he began to repay monies received to which he was not entitled, this was Opposition Leader Tony Abbott on his feet in The House of Representatives on 9 October 2012:

Never mind that the squalid deal that the Prime Minister cooked up last November involved placing in the chair of this parliament someone whom her own government was investigating for misuse of entitlements…

Apparently when another member of parliament claims money from the taxpayer that he should not have received it is a matter so grave that it should bring down a government, but when Tony Abbott himself does the same thing it is a matter of small importance to be easily shrugged off and lied about to the media.

UPDATE:

Despite the previous written admissions of 29 October 2010 made by his chief of staff on behalf of Tony Abbott, the Opposition Leader continues to lie to the media and the Australian electorate.

The Guardian UK 8 July 2013:

When asked at a press conference on Monday morning if he had wrongly claimed travel expenses while promoting Battlelines, Abbott replied: "No, I did not."
He did not elaborate on the answer before taking the next question and ended the press conference after answering questions from two other journalists on the press club debate and the potential timing of the election....

We now learn from Michelle Grattan that his publisher, Melbourne University Press, actually repaid the debt.

Epic Fail: eHealth national database contains only 397,745 mostly empty individual patient files

Delimiter 3 July 2013:

As at June 30, the Department of Health and Ageing said that total number of users was 397,745. The majority of these registrations resulted from a recent push by DoHA using consultants to sign people up at public hospitals and at eHealth roadshows.

Still, even if the government had met the target of 500,000, it would have been a meaningless gesture. The vast majority of those who have signed up, if they ever get around to logging in, will be greeted with an empty record. Given the lack of active participation on the part of GPs, as well as the lack of public hospital systems to integrate with PCEHR, there’s little evidence to suggest that this is going to change any time soon.

So far, only 4,805 individual providers have signed up to access the PCEHR portal. This is despite the fact that the government provides incentives to GPs to connect to the system by paying them the Practice Incentive Payments for eHealth (ePIP).

Despite these payments, GPs still struggle to see the benefit of spending time curating shared records when the legal liabilities are still unknown but are potentially severe.

The cost of the ongoing maintenance of these largely empty records is about AUS$80m a year. And that’s just the baseline. It’s clear that a great deal more funding will be needed to try and lift the level of meaningful use of PCEHR.

The problem for governments is that increasing spending on a system becomes progressively harder the longer it remains largely unused. What’s more, the devolved nature of the Australian health system makes it extremely unlikely that we’ll ever see true and meaningful use of the system. What we will continue to see however, are reports of increasing numbers of registrations, data about the number of people who accessed the system and how much administrative data has been added……

Funding for the personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) system does not extend beyond the end of this financial year, but both federal and state governments appear determined to retain this flawed national database.

Essential Report: Groups considered better off under a Labor or Liberal Government

Groups better off under Labor or Liberal Government

Jul 1, 2013

Q. Do you think the following groups of people would be better off under a Labor Government or a Liberal Government?

	Better off under a Labor Government	Better off under a Liberal Government	Makes no difference	Don’t know		Difference (Labor minus Liberal)	Difference Sept 12
People with disabilities	41%	20%	23%	16%		+21	+20
People and families on low incomes	42%	21%	21%	16%		+21	+27
Single parents	35%	20%	25%	20%		+15	+23
Unemployed people	35%	21%	27%	18%		+14	+27
Families with children at public school	36%	22%	23%	19%		+14	+19
Recent immigrants to Australia	31%	18%	28%	24%		+13	+18
Pensioners	34%	23%	25%	19%		+11	+16
Average working people	31%	29%	24%	16%		+2	+5
People and families on middle incomes	28%	33%	21%	18%		-5	-7
Farmers and other agricultural producers	19%	34%	24%	24%		-15	-13
Small businesses	20%	38%	20%	21%		-18	-16
Families with children at private school	15%	42%	23%	20%		-27	-30
Banks and other financial institutions	10%	45%	23%	21%		-35	-38
People and families on high incomes	12%	53%	17%	18%		-41	-43
Large corporations	10%	53%	18%	19%		-43	-48

Respondents were substantially more likely to think the following groups would be better off under a Labor Government – people with disabilities, low income families, single parents, unemployed and families with children at public school.

They were substantially more likely to think the following groups would be better off under a Liberal Government – large corporations, high income families, banks and financial institutions, families with children at private schools

Clarence Valley Cr. Karen Toms to move motion next week that Council commence awareness campaign re upcoming national referendum to recognise local government in Australian Constitution

Finally Clarence Valley Council appears to be considering an information campaign which will offset the alarmist nonsense being spread across the local government area by those being fed misinformation via websites such as Vote No To Canberra's Power Grab.

This nonsense reaches its peak in local online comments by the likes yambaman and Klanger.

There is no doubt that this referendum is being strongly supported by local governments across Australia:

Our national campaign involving mayors and councillors across the country is well underway and Commonwealth funding to support the yes campaign has been confirmed.  Councils strongly believe that winning a referendum is in the interests of every local community and we will continue to reinforce this.  Councils need formal recognition as legitimate recipients of direct federal funding because without it, federal programs such as Roads to Recovery are at risk of legal challenge.  That's why we are getting on with the job of ensuring that Australians understand that voting 'yes' at a referendum is the only way to protect direct funding for community infrastructure such as local roads, libraries, child care and sporting fields.

Although the decision regarding the timing of the federal election is one for the Government, local government is confident that the referendum will go ahead.  We are ready and we are confident of a successful referendum in the near future. 

Mayor Felicity-ann LewisALGA President

Hopefully Clarence Valley Council will pass this timely motion at committee and ordinary monthly meeting level and, then act quickly to give residents and ratepayers reliable information concerning the forthcoming referendum.

Committee: Governance & Corporate

Section: Notice of Motion - Cr Toms

Date: 9 July 2013

Item: 15.006/13 Referendum for Constitutional Recognition of Local Government

To the General Manager, Clarence Valley Council

PROPOSED MOTION

1. That council commence an awareness campaign to ensure our community understands the importance of the upcoming referendum to recognise local Government in the Constitution

2. This could include but not be limited to an addition to councils existing advertisements in the local papers, flyers and posters in Libraries and other public places as the General Manager sees fit.

3. Information placed on councils website and in our e-newsletters

4. That Local Government NSW be asked to provide campaign support materials to Councillors to assist with raising awareness in the community prior to the Referendum.

BACKGROUND

The Prime Minister announced 9 May 2013 the Australian Government’s intention to proceed with a referendum to recognise local Government in the Constitution.

The referendum will be held on the same day as the Federal Election this year and will ask the voters to cast a vote on “financial” recognition to enable the Commonwealth to continue to provide direct funding to local services and local communities.

The Constitution Alteration (Local Government) Bill 2013- was released by Minister Albanese on 16 May and formally introduced into Parliament on 29 May. The Bill was the last formal step in the path to a referendum

LGNSW wrote to all NSW Federal Members and NSW Senators to support the legislation that was introduced into Federal Parliament to provide for a Referendum to amend the Constitution to include the ability to directly fund Local Government.

The proposed legislation was supported in the Federal Parliament on Monday 24 June 2013.

Should the referendum be successful Section 96 will be amended to read "...Parliament may grant financial assistance to any state or local government body formed by a law of a State on such terms and conditions as the Parliament thinks fit."

The words of the proposed amendment were designed specifically to give assurance to State

Governments that, under the proposed change, local government would remain the responsibility of state and territory governments.

Legal advice confirms that the Federal Government will not be able to ask local government to do anything that would contravene a state law, and that states will retain the right to legislate for their councils, including the ability to stop them from accepting federal funding if they have concerns.

ISSUES

Although the Commonwealth Government has provided direct funding to local government for many years, two recent High Court decisions in the space of 3 years have challenged its power to do so.

A 2009 High Court case Pape v Commissioner of Taxation found that the Commonwealth does not have power to directly fund areas such as local government. It can only spend money where it has a specific power under the Constitution. A further case in 2012 Williams v Commonwealth of Australia reaffirmed the Court’s finding in Pape v Commissioner of Taxation that there are significant constitutional limits to the Commonwealth’s ability to spend money.

Both decisions have created legal uncertainty in relation to direct funding from the Commonwealth to local government.

The decisions present a compelling reason to include local government in the Constitution. Without constitutional recognition, direct Commonwealth funding of local government, through programs such as Roads to Recovery, may be technically invalid. Local government needs certainty and security of funding in order to provide the range and level of services expected by the community.

This referendum is about fixing a problem and removing the uncertainty surrounding the funding of vital services and infrastructure for communities.

OPTIONS

1. Support the proposed motion

2. Not support the proposed motion

3. Take some other action

Councillors Karen Toms

Date 27 June 2013

Crass stupidity masquerading as Tony Jones

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3790516.htm

@MichelleSuiter says it for all of us:  Amazing to think Women have only been fighting for equality for less than a year ...

Federal Greens candidate in Cowper Carol Vernon satisfied with recent NSW Legislative Council amendments to Local Land Services Bill 2013

Media Release, June 28, 2013

Greens Cowper candidate pleased that Greens amendments support landholders

“Our local towns, from Kempsey to Maclean, benefit from a healthy rural environment,” said Carol Vernon.

The Greens candidate for Cowper expressed her satisfaction that The NSW Legislative Council has agreed to two Greens amendments to the Local Land Services Bill 2013.

“The Greens are pleased that these sensible amendments to promote modern, scientific land management were adopted by the NSW Parliament, “ said Carol Vernon

The first amendment restores triple bottom line natural resource management, and the use of sound scientific knowledge in decision-making.

The second amendment (in italics) modified an existing object in the act “to provide a framework for financial assistance and incentives to landholders including, but not limited to, incentives that promote land and biodiversity conservation”

“Farmers and landholders who want to manage their land to promote environmental restoration and biodiversity deserve financial support,” she said.

“The Greens would like to see a system of rate reductions for landholders who dedicate parts of their land to environmental restoration or conservation.

“Compare these moves to support protection of the environment by the NSW parliament, to the stance of the federal Liberal/National parties for land and biodiversity conservation. On June 26 they refused to vote for Senator Milne’s motion for “a total prohibition on logging in any World Heritage areas in Australia, now and into the future.”

“Only Greens in the Senate will protect future biodiversity essential to our children’s heritage,” said Mrs Vernon.

Media contact: [redacted]

Website: http://candidates.greens.org.au/cowper

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarolVernonGreensForCowper?fref=ts

Carol Vernon (Greens4Cowper) on Twitter

Blog: http://mncgreens.blogspot.com.au   E: Cowper@nsw.greens.org.au