Guild refutes ‘cartel’ label
April 17, 2014
On the cusp of negotiations
around the Sixth Community
Pharmacy Agreement (6CPA),
media have called it a “Cartel
Pharmacy Agreement” and
described the Pharmacy Guild as
“bolshie unionists.”
Janet Albrechtsen, writing for The
Australian, and interviewed on ABC
Radio Perth 702 yesterday, said
the CPA was contrary to the free
market positions of most political
parties these days.
Albrechtsen said that former
attempts to reform the
protectionist structure had met
with “tinkering here and there”
but a general failure of successive
governments to “regulate the more
than 5,000 pharmacies to make
them more competitive, more
efficient and, most important,
to provide better services for
consumers.”
She cited the location rules as a
“protection gig” and the ownership
rules as “competition stifling”
saying other professions did not get
the same protection.
The Guild returned fire from
both barrels, with director of
communications Greg Turnbull
writing an op ed in the Australian
today and speaking on 720 ABC
Perth’s Drive Time yesterday.
The op ed piece, titled
‘Communities know the value of
their pharmacies’, talked about
the value of pharmacists to the
community, serving as “healthcare
hubs” and representing an effective
partnership between public and
private sectors, a model that
worked well and was “very strongly
supported” by the public.
Turnbull also talked about the
effects of price disclosure on
pharmacies and the recent Guild
employment survey predicting up
to 9,000 jobs will be lost in the next
12 months (PD 03 Apr).
Turnbull said pharmacy
regulations, such as location and
ownership rules, were not “antifreedom”
but acted in the public
interest to ensure safe, professional
dispensing of medicines.
During his radio interview,
Turnbull said this “good regulation”
was because medicines under the
PBS scheme were not ordinary
items of commerce.
Turnbull said if a free market
were in place, such as Albrechtsen
would support, pharmacies could
cluster and “big box” pharmacies
could potentially run smaller,
independent pharmacies out of
business.
“I think there’s a real public
interest benefit in ensuring that
medicines are available where
people live and where people need
them.”
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