Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Like the previous speaker, the member for Swan, I will support the Tax Laws Amendment (Medicare Levy and Medicare Levy Surcharge) Bill 2006. The legislation increases the Medicare levy low-income thresholds for families and individuals. The dependent children and student components of the family threshold will also be increased. The increases are in line with the movement in the CPI and increase the Medicare levy low-income threshold for pensioners below age pension so that they do not have a Medicare levy liability where they do not have an income tax liability. This legislation is a very small step towards alleviating the hardship that many people experience in Australia—the hardship they experience in accessing medical treatment, the hardship they experience in paying for medical treatment and the hardship that has been brought upon them by this government.

One issue that is of great concern to me now—and I know that a number of speakers on this side of the House have mentioned it—is the sale of Australia’s biggest not-for-profit health insurance fund, Medibank Private. If I were a member of parliament who came from Queensland, I would be particularly concerned, because 75 per cent of the private health insurance market is covered by Medibank Private. Coupled with MBF, that is practically the whole of the private health insurance market within Queensland. That is a very big worry when the government is arguing that competition will keep down the price of premiums. I would have to say that that competition has not done much towards keeping down the price of health insurance premiums in Australia to date.

We have had enormous increases, well above the CPI, in private health insurance. As well as those increases, we have found that the value of having private health insurance has declined, with the gap between the cost of the service and the money received by a person who holds the private health insurance becoming larger and larger. Selling Medibank Private will in no way guarantee greater competition; rather, it will lead to reduced competition and a further spiralling of the increase in private health insurance premiums plus an increase in the gap that Australians have to pay when they use their private health insurance to access care in a private hospital within the private health industry.

The minister announced the sale in April this year. During the 2001 election campaign the Howard government claimed that their policies would lead to reduced premiums. Just as they are saying now that we will have increased competition, previously they have argued that their policies will reduce the cost of health insurance premiums. But that that has not happened; premiums have increased. I think we will not be at all surprised on this side of the House when we find that there is less, rather than more, competition.

The budget papers show that $500 million has been committed over the next year for health and medical research. However, 20 per cent of the total health budget is allocated to measures driven by the sale of Medibank Private, and that is linked to the money that is being spent in medical research. That is a worry, because I think that medical research is such an important issue and such an important area that the government should contribute to it well and truly without tying it to the sale of Medibank Private.

The previous speaker mentioned the need for a Medicare office in Belmont. I am going to join him and also call for a Medicare office in Belmont. There was a Medicare office operating in Belmont within the Shortland electorate, and it had a very high turnover of claims. Some 20,000 people in Shortland electorate have signed petitions supporting its reopening. The government closed the office in 1996 when it came to power. The government left open offices with smaller turnovers but which were in Liberal, marginal electorates and closed the office at Belmont.

The Shortland electorate has the 10th highest number of people aged over 65 in Australia. Its outlying areas are quite a distance from the nearest Medicare office, so pensioners on restricted licences who are located in those outlying areas would find themselves unable to drive to the current Medicare office at Charlestown.

The government is selling Medibank Private and has closed Medicare offices within the electorate of Shortland. It is demonstrating its blatant disregard for and putting its own interests ahead of those of the people of the Shortland electorate, whom I represent in this parliament. These actions are all driven by some obscure philosophy that unless people pay for their medical treatment we will end up with a second-class US-style medical system. The government should really see health as priority and be prepared to contribute to it.

A group that has impressed me particularly is the hospital reform group. Its main interest is in ensuring that our public hospitals are looked after. It is a broad group, which includes senior health workers, doctors, nurses, allied health clinicians, academics, managers and consumers, whose main commitment is to public health. A main issue that it highlights is the impact that workforce shortages have had on our hospital system and our ability to look after people when they are sick.

We have a chronic doctor shortage within the Shortland electorate. We have elderly people who cannot find a doctor to give them the medical care and treatment they need. We have pensioners who are sitting in their houses unable to go to a doctor because they do not have the mobility to do so. In most areas, we have doctors who have closed their books. They have not closed their books because they do not want to see patients; they have closed them because they physically cannot see any more patients than they are seeing at the moment. If they were to do so, they would risk being investigated by the Health Insurance Commission.

On the issue of workforce shortage, the government has really failed not only the people of Shortland but the people of Australia—and not only in the area of doctors. Within Australia, we have a chronic shortage of nurses and a shortage of all allied health care workers. The government was very short sighted when it came to power in 1996. It cut the places that were available at universities and suddenly we have been hit with this shortage of doctors. The changes it made to the provision of provider numbers have also contributed to these shortages. It is all very well for the government to say that it is acting now; it is too little and too late. Even when new doctors do come on line in 10 years, we will still have problems.

Previous speakers have mentioned issues surrounding dental health. Once again, one of the first acts of this Howard government was to axe the Commonwealth dental health scheme, which immediately cut off access to public dental care for millions of Australians. This has hurt pensioners particularly. As I mentioned earlier, in this parliament I represent an older electorate and many of my constituents have no dentures. People have come to see me because of dental problems—having no dentures, they have to eat soup; some have infected teeth. People have to wait for very long times to access the public dental system that is available. I know that the New South Wales government has done everything in its power to help and has actually increased expenditure in this area. However, it is not unusual to have someone come to me and say, ‘I have a tooth that could be filled but, because of problems with accessing dental services, I am getting all my teeth pulled out.’ Someone said that to me just the other day.

Last year the government commissioned the Podger inquiry and I believe that it has written its report. But that report has never surfaced in this parliament. Last week Andrew Podger presented evidence to this parliament’s Committee on Health and Ageing. When I asked him about that report, he told me that he could not divulge what was in it as it was the property of the government. This inquiry was set up to look at the provision of health care, at the relationship between the states and the Commonwealth regarding health care and at whether it would be better for the Commonwealth to be the sole provider of health care. From listening to what Andrew Podger said when presenting to the committee, I am sure that he has a strong inclination towards that approach.

Andrew Podger undertook an inquiry—paid for by the government with taxpayers’ money—looked at all the evidence and then prepared a report. What has happened? That report sits on a shelf somewhere in the Prime Minister’s office or perhaps in the office of the minister for health and they refuse to release that report. They refuse to tell the Australian people what that taxpayer money has been spent on. They refuse to tell us whether Andrew Podger thinks the current system is the best approach for delivering health services to Australians. What concerns me about this is that millions of Australians are waiting for health services.

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