Only an especially cynical parliament would put pharmacists’ commercial interests ahead of Indigenous health.In Queensland, Twomey and his colleagues have convinced the government to introduce more regulation. A law to shield pharmacists from competition, preserving their local and lucrative monopolies, was unanimously passed last Tuesday.
There are many reasons the law is bad policy. The worst may be in Indigenous communities, which won’t be allowed to open Aboriginal-owned pharmacies in health clinics in remote areas, where city-trained, white-uniformed chemists don’t want to live.“Less than one third of our people have access to medicine compared to average Queenslanders,” says Matt Cook, the chairman of the Queensland Aboriginal and Islander Health Service.
Classes of workers who engage in extensive lobbying deserve special scrutiny. In Queensland, the Pharmacy Guild had twice as many meetings with state MPs than the next most active lobby group, taxi drivers,Their arguments were bogus: company-owned pharmacies would hurt customers’ health ; locating pharmacies in or next to supermarkets would make them less medical-like ; and they need more time to advise customers how to use medicine .