Thank you everybody for coming here today to The Entrance on the Central Coast of New South Wales. I'm delighted to welcome back the Prime Minister and my good friend and colleague, Dr Gordon Reid, who's joining us after doing a shift in the local ED yesterday. Today is a really significant day when we, what comes into effect, one of our major election commitments. And as a local MP and as a pharmacist myself, I know the difference that cheaper medicines will make to so many people and families across our community. So today, the 1st of January, PBS prescriptions will cost no more than $25, a cut of more than 20 per cent which will save Australians an estimated $200 million on the cost of medicines. I know as a pharmacist, I've been in a situation where people are forced to decide between getting a script filled, or not, delaying or avoiding filling prescriptions. We know that that's happened too often. Women are more often likely to delay or avoid filling a script than men, often on behalf of their family. I've been in a pharmacy where someone's come in from doing the groceries. They've got the shopping trolley full. They've got a bunch of prescriptions in their hand, and they've said to me, 'can I get one antibiotic mixture and share it between my children?' And it was a different antibiotic mixture. So, we know this big difference that this will make to children and families right across the country. And I want to thank the Prime Minister for his leadership, for making sure that PBS medicines are affordable. And a big part of that as well, will be freezing the cost of concession scripts. Concession scripts have been frozen for five years till 2030, so no concession card holder will pay more than $7.70 for their medicines. The Prime Minister knows the difference that that will make, particularly to older Australians and people who are struggling. This is good for your health and good for your hip pocket. Before I hand over to the Prime Minister and then Dr Gordon Reid, I also want to briefly touch on the next phase of our big changes in mental health. As a clinician who worked in mental health in patient units, I saw too many people in distress end up in crisis because they couldn't get support in the community. Today, Medicare Mental Health Check In goes live, and I encourage all Australians to jump online and to see the new services that they can register for that will be available for them, without needing a diagnosis, without needing a referral, and for free. It's estimated that this will be able to benefit more than 150,000 Australians in its first year, as we continue to roll out our free mental health services under Medicare, putting mental health at the heart of Medicare and services in the centre of communities, I might now hand over to the Prime Minister and then to my colleague, Dr Gordon Reid. Thank you, PM, for being here today.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER:
