Bruce Baird (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I congratulate you, Mr Deputy Speaker Secker, on your appointment to the Speaker’s panel. I rise in support of the Human Services (Enhanced Service Delivery) Bill 2007. My support for this legislation is premised on a very clear need to update Australia’s delivery of health services. The current Medicare arrangements which govern delivery of over $16 billion in health benefits have been in place and unchanged since 1984—the same year the dollar coin was introduced and the same year Advance Australia Fair was proclaimed as our national anthem. Many things have changed since that time—but not the Medicare card.

The Medicare card uses outdated magnetic strip technology. The Australian Federal Police estimate that more than half of identity fraud cases in Australia each year involve a Medicare card. It is because it is cheap and easy to copy, and there is no photo on it. The Federal Police also tell us that a high-quality fake Medicare card can be purchased on the black market for $150. The Australian people should be able to expect their government to provide a robust form of protection for their personal information. The current Medicare card and the other 16 cards and vouchers that the smartcard will replace do not provide this protection. This, of course, leads us to the issue of welfare fraud.

It is estimated that the smartcard will save some $3 billion in health and welfare fraud over the next 10 years. My understanding is that this is a conservative estimate. When one considers that the Department of Human Services distributed $100 billion in health and welfare benefits last year, I think it would be fair to say that we could realistically expect even greater savings than effectively three per cent of our total health and welfare expenditure, especially when we consider the degree to which those who have been fraudulently using the card have been able to use it under the current system. As examples of this, there is the case of a Victorian man who allowed his father, a non-resident, to claim the Medicare rebate to the value of $3,300 for laser eye treatment and related consultations. A Sydney woman’s stolen Medicare card was used in 2005 to claim the benefits associated with a kidney operation. The thief had a cyst removed during a procedure at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney. A deregistered doctor in Queensland used 21 false identities involving Medicare cards to obtain almost 20,000 morphine tablets, with a street value of $2 million, to sell to drug addicts and abusers. The fraud cost the taxpayer over $50,000 and put countless Australian lives at risk. Then there was the lady who made up false birth certificates to claim benefits for nine sets of twins—which is quite some achievement—worth over $600,000. She was getting benefits from the government for 18 fake children. So, not surprisingly, we have to change this situation. The level of fraud is totally unacceptable.

It is plainly evident that the government has to improve and update the delivery of health services to Australians in a manner that is more appropriate in today’s technologically advanced world—it is not 1984 anymore—and a solution is necessary to deliver the $11 billion in Medicare benefits every year. The smartcard would improve the delivery of Medicare benefits in a number of ways. But the smartcard is not just replacing the Medicare card; it in fact replaces 17 different Australian government health and welfare benefit cards, in particular the veterans card, the healthcare concession card and the pensioner concession cards.

In terms of fraud, these other cards are, in technological terms, even less sophisticated than the Medicare card. Most of them are made of cardboard, which is quite surprising. Concession cardholders claim 80 per cent of the $6 billion the government spends on the PBS annually. That is $5 billion of Commonwealth money that is claimed every year by showing a piece of cardboard—one with no photo of its owner and which can be readily forged by the most amateurish of counterfeiters. The Australian National Audit Office estimates that one-quarter of all concession cards are cancelled before the actual expiry date that is printed on the card. This means that at any given time there are 1.5 million Australians claiming heavily subsidised prescriptions they are not entitled to and effectively stealing hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money every year.

This goes to the heart of how the smartcard improves this system. When it is introduced, those entitled to a concession will have to swipe their smartcard at the chemist and the chemist’s machine will instantly communicate with Centrelink and tell the chemist: ‘Yes, this person is entitled to a concession rate,’ or ‘No, this person is not entitled to a concession rate.’ It is quite simple. It is just like a normal bank ATM system. Banks have been using this with EFTPOS for some years—yes, there is money in the account or no, there is not. It is quite simple.

There have been four concerns, in particular, that have been put forward. Some of my colleagues have brought these issues forward. I respect their views and opinions on this issue, but I take a different approach. The first major concern is that the smartcard is an ID card. The second concern is what has been termed ‘function creep’, whereby the smartcard’s function becomes, over time, more far-reaching than it was planned to be. The third concern is in regard to the eligibility of minors to be cardholders. The fourth concern, as I see it, is over privacy.

Let me firstly address the charge that the smartcard is an ID card or a rehashed version of Labor’s Australia Card. This is simply not the case. The smartcard is a health and social services card, nothing more. Individuals will not be required to carry it on their person like the UK ID card. No person or organisation can require you to present the card for any reason, except when claiming Commonwealth benefits. The premise is simple: bring the card when you need it; show it when you want to. In fact the legislation specifically prohibits anybody from requiring you to present your smartcard.

For example, security staff at a hotel would be specifically prevented from requesting to see your smartcard for proof of age. You can offer it as ID if you wish, but you cannot be required to produce it. In fact under this legislation there are penalties if people demand to see your smartcard. So there is no credibility in the claim that the smartcard is some kind of national identity card. The United Kingdom’s ID card, for example, which is used for national security, immigration control and all public services, includes up to 13 biometrics—that is, fingerprints, iris scans and so on. The smartcard only has a biometric photo and will display less information on it than a drivers licence. You can choose to have your date of birth on the card, but this is entirely optional. That will not be a major problem.

No extra functions can be added without changing the law. Some have raised concerns about ‘function creep’—that we will find that additional functions will be added and before we know it we will have a brave new world where all aspects of our lives will be on the card. In fact the Commonwealth agencies that can use the card are explicitly listed in the bill. No other agency can use it. If another agency does want to use it—and I am sure that some will think, ‘Yes, I’d like to have access to this card’—it would require new legislation. There is no capacity for function creep without further change to the law.

The arrangements for minors will not change. I know that there has been some concern that the card will somehow prevent teenagers from accessing health care. This is a particularly sensitive area in terms of reproductive health for teenage girls and becomes problematic for legislators trying to protect children while at the same time upholding the rights of parents to be involved in any medical treatment their children might be seeking or receiving. The current arrangements in terms of minors will not change. I believe that currently 16- and 17-year-olds can get their own Medicare card without parental consent, and there are strict guidelines for certain categories of children under 15 years of age getting a Medicare card without parental consent, such as homeless children and children who are estranged from their families for a variety of reasons. The majority of children under 15 years old do not have their own cards and are listed on their parents’ cards. There is zero change in this area: the guidelines that govern the Medicare card arrangements of minors will transfer directly to the new smartcard.

The fourth area of concern as I see it is privacy. Many people legitimately fear that, with the progress of technology, the government’s capacity to act in a way that infringes on the personal privacy of its citizens is enhanced. What I am sure of is this: the smartcard does not equip the government or any other organisation or individual with any greater power than they already possess. The fact of the matter is that there is no data stored by the smartcard database, called the customer registration system, that is not already held by Commonwealth agencies. The government already holds an enormous amount of information on each citizen at various different levels. The smartcard does not change information-sharing arrangements between government departments and agencies. It does not combine data that was not previously combined.

The smartcard database will sit separately from the Medicare database and the Centrelink database. None of these databases will communicate with each other any differently or share information any more than they already do at present time. The only real difference will be that the government will now store a photograph of each cardholder. Currently the Commonwealth holds photographs for various uses, like passports. The only change is that the photo will be stored on the smartcard database, but, again, the legislation explicitly nominates the agencies that can access this information and by law no other agencies will have access to that data.

The real myth buster in terms of privacy concerns is the nature of the information stored. The smartcard database only stores basic details: name, address, date of birth et cetera. It is hardly groundbreaking information. People are free to store extra personal information if they wish to—such as blood type or allergies—but this is entirely optional.

There are already multiple layers of privacy protection in federal law, including the Privacy Act and a raft of other statutes. The introduction of this bill does not remove any pre-existing safeguards that exist in current law; it simply establishes another level of protection with specific reference to the card. The privacy of information collected by Human Services for the purpose of the smartcard is protected by this legislation. The higher grade of security will actually increase privacy protection, not threaten it. Smartcard chips are the way of the future. The banks are embracing this technology, and it is time the government did too. So there is no ID card by stealth being introduced, there will be no capacity for function creep, there will be no changes to arrangements involving children and there is no mega database being created to invade the privacy of unsuspecting Australians.

It is plain to see that Labor are flip-flopping on this issue. Labor’s position on this policy is quite confounding. The member for Sydney has outlined Labor’s opposition to the bill. Yet her colleague the member for Lilley said only last year that ‘a smartcard for social security purposes is a very good thing. It would help us detect fraud’. Also last year the member for Sydney’s predecessor in the Human Services portfolio, the member for Wills, said that Labor’s position was to acknowledge ‘that smartcard technology has the potential to streamline services and reduce costs’. There has been quite an incredible about-turn by those on the other side of the chamber in regard to this policy. My view is that they have transplanted the public interest at stake here for perceived political gain.

The Australian government is making more than $100 billion worth of payments every year. It is absolutely self-evident that there should be a decent system in place that reduces fraud and is convenient for customers; a decent system that brings our health and welfare service delivery into the 21st century. It is the least we can do to ensure that the right payment is going to the right person at the right time. This card will help deliver on that promise and stop most of the fraud that has gone on in the past.

I am sure that there will always be those with entrepreneurial flair who will move to fraud, but this will make it so much more difficult and the types of flagrant abuse of cards that we have seen right around Australia will cease. I support this legislation. I want to see an end to the fraud. I want to see the money placed in the hands of those people who deserve it: pensioners, concession card holders and those who are due for PBS rebates for their medical bills and a whole range of services that are provided by the government. It is a huge amount of money. New technology has evolved. There are always challenges; there are always issues. I am sure that most of us are concerned about issues of privacy. Will this be the brave new world where we have the intrusion of government into aspects of our personal lives? I believe that the safeguards and the protections are there. This new smartcard will bring us up to 2007 technology. We will avoid much of the fraud that we see today and there will be a significant reduction in government expenditure, which will allow greater expenditure on those in genuine need. It will stop those who are simply out to defraud the system by duplicating bogus cards rorting the system across the board. I commend this legislation to the House.

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