JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, Labor says the free trade deal will only now go through if it's elected. How do you respond to it?
PRIME MINISTER:
You've got to be joking. Our position is that the Free Trade Agreement fully protects the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. That's not only my view, it was also the view yesterday of the most senior Labor man in Australia, Bob Carr, speaking on ABC Radio, he said there was full protection for the PBS and he didn't have any concerns. It's the view, so I understand it, of the generic medicines industry. So if the senior Labor man in Australia, the Premier of New South Wales, says there's not a problem and if the head of the generic medicines industry says there's not a problem, you're left with only one conclusion and that is that what Mr Latham is putting up is not out of genuine concern for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme because we would never have agreed to the FTA if we had thought it undermined the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and it's clear from the views of the two people I've quoted as well as from our own research and our own work that it doesn't. And it's even the view of Senator Conroy, he said the same thing. Now if you... Conroy, Carr and generic medicines on one side saying there's no problem with the PBS and the FTA, but Mr Latham says there is without his amendment, it makes me think that the amendment is a political amendment and it's not a PBS amendment. And we're not in the business of adopting political amendments particularly as there are concerns that it could harm the existing patent law. We haven't seen the amendment yet, from what I've heard it could have that effect and that's why we're very negative about it. Thank you.
[ends]