Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker Saffin; it is a great honour to speak in front of you. Yet again Labor has done the right thing by working families. Increasing the Medicare levy surcharge thresholds to $100,000 for individuals and $150,000 for families from 1 July 2008 will be yet another measure to take the pressure off working families. This measure, like our tax cuts, like our education support measures and like axing WorkChoices, will help working families. The guts of this issue are this: as a result of this change, many individuals will be up to $1,000 a year better off and couples will be up to $1,500 better off, and the 400,000 Australians without private health insurance who were being hit with this unfair tax will receive immediate tax relief. There are 400,000 Australians who will be better off under this budget measure.

Within my own electorate of Corangamite, this measure will have a very significant impact. Let’s have a look at what it will do in Corangamite. Based on calculations using census data, approximately 4,100 families will directly benefit from this measure. These local Corangamite families will be up to $1,500 a year better off—$1,500 is enough to pay for sporting fees for kids for a year for an average family. It is a lot of money for the average working family, and I think it is something the opposition just don’t get. It is about immediate financial relief to working families, and there are thousands of families in my own electorate alone.

But there is another issue at play here: the issue of choice. The decision provides Australians with more health choices. As we know, Liberal tradition is supposed to be all about choice. The Liberal theory was all about individuals of free will exercising choice. Today, as indicated by this debate, we know the Liberals have abandoned their tradition yet again. They have abandoned choice, just like they have abandoned working families. Our government supports working people and believes Australians deserve a real choice when it comes to their health care.

There are a couple of other historic things I want to point out about this measure. Firstly, it is about 10 years since the Medicare threshold was moved. The threshold has been frozen for a decade. When most other similar measures have been adjusted for changing circumstances, time has stood still on this one. In a way, it has mimicked the Liberals. It has moved about as far as the member for Higgins’s leadership bid, and that is nowhere. The only difference is that this has not been frozen by fear; it has been frozen because of Liberal policy paralysis.

See this speech in context